Skip to main content

Grizzly Rant: The Target 10 Room

The purpose of this post is to make an argument, based on experience, for designing all Rooms (especially first session Rooms) with a Target 10, using the EASY/HARD rule on the fly to adjust difficulty as needed.

Note: If you are reading this, I am assuming that you either A) play ICRPG or B) know the concept of a universal target DC for an encounter. Terminology used here will be from Index Card RPG by RUNEHAMMER GAMES, LLC.

I have been playing, designing and GM'ing adventures in ICRPG for a little over a year now. During my brief attempt (and subsequent failure) at launching my own business making adventure supplements, I designed and playtested multiple adventures for entry level, 6 point builds to extreme, high-powered late-game characters with 8 point builds, extra milestones and Epic Loot to start. More recently I ran the Doomvault with for my wife and sister-in law. I also played in several different games with the Ultimate Effort group GM'ed by Mike, Matt and Alex.

Here were my experiences.

Ultimate Effort Games:

3 different games run by 3 different GM's, all great and unique experiences. 6-point builds, mostly unique starter rewards. Rarely continued past the first session. Therefore, while milestones were rewarded, they were not used. Targets usually began at 10 in the first Room, then escalated to 11 and 12. They rarely went above that, as these were first sessions. Failure was just as common as success in any given Room due to diversity of characters and the brutality of the d20.

GMGrizzly Product Playtest: A Wild Affair. 

This was a beginner-level adventure. Targets 10-12. Failure/Success experience was very similar to the Ultimate Effort games.

Playtest: The Rotting Wood. 

Now here is where things got interesting. 4 players, custom builds. Characters were extraordinarily high powered, with attempt bonuses of +9 or greater. Some players even complained of being "OP" before we began playing. Targets were 11, 12, 13 and at one point, 14. It was rare that HARD rolls had to be made in the 11, 12 and 13 rooms. However, failure was very common. In the Target 14 room, many tasks took multiple attempts for success. People nearly died, and we had 4 characters with 2-3 hearts EACH, one of which a healer. Complaints of being overpowered were rare after the first Room, but stopped after the Target 14 Room.

Doomvault: 

2 players, 8 point builds, one Milestone and one random Epic Loot item. Players finely tuned their characters for their roles, and they are very good at what they do. We have a Hillman Mage and a Hillman Blade, a rather interesting combination. This was when I adopted the Target 10 rule for the entire dungeon from start to finish. However, failure was common enough that we employed the Exploding Dice Rule from the Core Manual. Particularly challenging Attempts were made HARD, an instant 15% increase in difficulty. It was perfect, it was fast, it was simple. They always knew what they had to beat, and the math was lightning quick.

Conclusion: 

Having recently read the SRD to Dungeon World myself, this should come to no surprise to most of you. Stressing over the Target of an encounter is not necessary. A Target 10 Room is perfectly adequate for mid-high level characters in ICRPG given the HARD/EASY tuning system. It is also easy to modify in the midst of a session: simply increase the Target of the next Room to 11 if players are breezing through everything. Have a monster or environmental Threat that increases the Room Target on a Timer or as an Ability, either permanently or temporarily. Use status effects that make things HARD. Increase the Hearts of your monsters or increase the Effort of your challenges. 

Or, instead of slowing the game down by increasing the amount of lost player turns due to constant failure, increase the danger of deadlier enemies by multiplying their Effort. Add Consequence and use the now potentially rarer moments of failure with high-powered player characters as key story-telling moments. Remove the requirement to re-roll for a blunder on a 1, making Backfires common and dangerous. Use Checks and Attempts of all the stats to keep the party on their toes and validate the players who made out-of-the-box build choices.

But all of this is one Game Master's opinion. Most importantly, have fun designing and running your games!

Happy gaming.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Things to Check Out:

Balancing in ICRPG: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Spellburn

I have a mage at my table. Her name is Sabina, the Pyromage. She has a spell that can either: Clear a Room of up to three, small (2 Heart) Enemies in one hit, or; One-shot a non-fire-resistant boss monster.  Sabina is awesome. Provided the spell doesn't explode in her face, miss... or accidentally hit her sister. Because there is another adventurer in the party. Her name is Agnes, the Twin Blade. She's pretty cool too, and her regular attack can one-shot 1-2 Heart creatures. Add the Kettish Chains' ability to re-roll on high Attempts and she easily does similar damage at close range. I love both these characters. But sometimes Agnes feels like Sabina takes the spotlight a little too much. That's on me as the GM, because Sabina has almost zero ability in STR or DEX tasks, things Agnes excels in. I need to design more STR and DEX based Effort challenges to give Agnes more screentime. Sabina can lay down some heavy covering fire. On the subject of "...
Post a Comment
Read more

FORCES: NPCs as LOOT in ICRPG

NPCs. Companions. The dreaded "GM-PC." We've all seen them. Most of us have been them. But no more! Rid thyself, O Game Master, of the shackles binding thee to eternal NPC bookkeeping! Fret not, O Player, of a new burden of which thou wilt never remember to do nor use! BEHOLD! Grizzly Encounter FORCES!  An ICRPG Supplement on Character Creation, NPCs, Companions, Villains, Kingly LOOT, and more! Estimated 2019. NOTE: TL;DR in CONCLUSION FORCES: Companions as LOOT "Companions" here mean NPCs (Non-Player Characters) that specifically follow the party for some reason. A Companion LOOT "Item" is more a conceptual thing than anything, for truly it stands for the NPC's Friendship. And Friendship is Earned, through hard work, Attempts at communication and interaction, and Effort.  In short, Companions are LOOT Chests, opened with CHA (or other STATs, depending on how they Attempt to win over the NPC). Once a PC has opened the proverbial...
2 comments
Read more

CHUNKS as Story: Roleplay and Mystery in ICRPG

I was drafting the "starter session" for a city quest the other day I call "The Whispers of Madness." It's a mystery adventure. ICRPG is an inherently fast-paced game, and mystery-type adventures are notorious for grinding parties to a halt for HOURS as they attempt to solve what the Game Master thought a relatively simple mystery, what is wrong  with you idiots, make a damn Perception check already! This is mostly because mysteries tend to rely on the wits of the players, and not the player characters. And GM's are not always flawless story or mystery writers. This was something I sought to remedy. BEHOLD: GM Grizzly's Story CHUNKS I love CHUNKS . They are so versatile, and I wonder just how much so Runehammer thought they might be when he first devised them. Initially, I applied a modified version to travel , then applied the concept to buildings and towns . Through the course of developing this adventure and its story , however, I realized s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Grizzly Rant: The Hillman WIldling Dilema (ICRPG)

There are many things separating ICRPG from other tabletop RPGs.  Right now, I'd like to write briefly about 2 of them: Effort and Loot-based classes.  This is important background information for what I really  want to get off my chest, which is an argument for running a class/race combination a certain way at your table. Effort and Loot: Effort is a system which attributes health and combat-like mechanics to non-combat tasks.  In short, it's a method of time control for the GM to employ at his or her table, effectively forcing tasks to require multiple turns and/or group "effort."   Players have four different dice they may roll to complete Effort, depending on the situation.  For more information, see ICRPG Core 1.3.3, pg 24.  For our purposes, we just need to know about two: Basic Work and Ultimate effort. Basic Effort is rolled on a d4 for any task done with bare hands.  Ultimate Effort is rolled in special occasions on a d12. ...
2 comments
Read more