The Birth of "Forward... To Adventure!"

[RPGPundit]

So, you KNOW you've got it bad when you start dreaming, not about pussy, not about adventure, not even about RPGs, but of RPG systems.  Yes, no good old "flying through the air" or "back in your old highschool classroom with no pants" dreams for yours truly. No, I dream about RPG systems at night.

Now that's fucking dedication right there. People have told me I "know" RPGs, well, now I can honestly say I'm designing systems in my sleep.  Which is odd, given that I don't actually design systems in my waking hours. My expertise in RPGs is strictly in the realms of DMing and Punditry, but at night all bets are off and I turn into a cross between Little Nemo and Mike Mearls.

Well, why not? Maybe its some kind of divine revelation; the Magic Deer coming to me in my sleep and giving me the One True system. Only, if that was the case the system in question wouldn't have been so freaking derivative.

What was it? Well, the system would best be described as a cross between "Tunnels & Trolls" and "True20".  It was T&T in the sense that the mechanic needed d6s, not d20s; and in the sense that combat was collective.

That's the one and only thing that I find brilliant and innovative about T&T.  Yes, the "saving throws" were one of the very earliest examples of ability checks, but that's something that was followed through and expanded from its primitive T&T iteration into the more sophisticated kind of systems you see elsewhere.

But what no one else seems to have picked up on is the T&T combat system.  You see, in T&T, all melee combat is done simultaneously (no initiative) and collectively.  In D&D, or any other RPG for that matter, Player 1 rolls to hit Monster 1, player 2 rolls to hit monster 2, etc etc.
In T&T, all the Players roll all of their dice together, and all the monsters roll all of their dice together.  If the player's total is more than the monsters, the difference in the result is applied as damage to the monsters, divided as the DM chooses.  If the opposite is the case, and the monsters got a higher number than the PCs, then the damage is divided among the PCs, again as the DM chooses.  The DM could divide the 50 points of damage into 10 per player, or decide that certain players get hit worse and others better.

But that's not all.  If you are using Magic or firing missle weapons, or trying a "stunt" (a saving roll), you do not participate in the Melee free-for-all.  What this means is that you have a chance of doing a special attack, which could either be really helpful or not at all, but in exchange you do not help the collective in their attack roll and therefore increase the possibility that the monsters in melee will beat the heros.  Of course, if you're the archer or the wizard or the rogue, and your side loses the melee, you won't be damaged, only the actual fighters in the melee will be.  But if some monster gets loose  (does a stunt of his own, or casts a spell, or fires a missle), he could hit you and you would be defenceless.

So the whole game becomes far more of a chess game, where the type of attack you make truly matters.  You can join the melee, or you can stay out of the melee; which might be helpful or not, might keep you safe from damage or not, and might be selfish or might be good teamwork depending.

Sadly, no other system I know has been able to capture this particular quality from T&T and translate it into a more appealing game system over all. Because the rest of T&T is absolute nonsense. T&T was one of the very earliest fantasy heartbreakers.

Maybe that's what my dream was about. You see, the system I dreamt of had True20's characteristics for character classes, a very simplified set of "skill adds", no feats (just a few special abilities available depending on which class you played), and a "stunt" system based on attribute rolls for any special action. And, it had the collective combat a lá T&T.
The whole thing ran on 3d6 rolls, instead of the D20, because the bell curve felt important to me for some reason; and there were some significant changes to the combat system since it was simulataneous, not initiative-based, so you only had to do one roll to reflect your attack and defence.
I had gotten rid of the toughness system and restored the hit point system because it felt more appropriate, and armor worked as damage resistance.
Conviction points were still in there, but very modified to make them highly useful for combat and healing.

Anyways, all that in a fevered night of dreams. Not bad for the game-design equivalent of sonambulism.  Fuck's sake though, you'd think I could dream about Asian Nurses or something normal like that...

RPGPundit November 11 2005

[Blackleaf]

But what no one else seems to have picked up on is the T&T combat system. You see, in T&T, all melee combat is done simultaneously (no initiative) and collectively. In D&D, or any other RPG for that matter, Player 1 rolls to hit Monster 1, player 2 rolls to hit monster 2, etc etc.
In T&T, all the Players roll all of their dice together, and all the monsters roll all of their dice together. If the player's total is more than the monsters, the difference in the result is applied as damage to the monsters, divided as the DM chooses. If the opposite is the case, and the monsters got a higher number than the PCs, then the damage is divided among the PCs, again as the DM chooses. The DM could divide the 50 points of damage into 10 per player, or decide that certain players get hit worse and others better.

I've never had a chance to read the rules for T&T... but this is VERY cool.  I'm finding the old games have so many neat ideas in them rule wise.  Thanks for posting this!

[James McMurray]

T&T. Wow. that dredges up some ancient memories. Definitely a cool game.

[Levi Kornelsen]

Damn.

That is cool.

[Sosthenes]

I might get roasted for this, but T&T would move along better if you had a success-counting dice pool mechanism instead of one where you add the results.  The number of dice needed for one round can reach the triple digits rather easily...

I've been thinking about using another mechanism from T&T with D20: escalating attributes. In Tunnels & Trolls, those increase pretty heavily, and this could be made into the core advancement system for a D20 variant. You'd still have feats but they get "unlocked" by certain attribute values (e.g. at Str 28 you get "Power Smash").

[RPGPundit]

I might get roasted for this, but T&T would move along better if you had a success-counting dice pool mechanism instead of one where you add the results.  The number of dice needed for one round can reach the triple digits rather easily...

Yes, that's a problem in T&T; that's why in FtA! I changed the deal to being one where each combatant rolls 3d6, no more no less. You can still end up with quite a bit of adding, but it certainly speeds things up.

RPGPundit

[JongWK]

Damn.

That is cool.

It's good, though I would like to try a few variants. Like combining ranged attacks with melee. Pundit separates them, but I think they could both be part of the same roll, and let the GM describe how it happened.

[Levi Kornelsen]

It's good, though I would like to try a few variants. Like combining ranged attacks with melee. Pundit separates them, but I think they could both be part of the same roll, and let the GM describe how it happened.

Well, you've got your big "the guys stuck in" totals, right?  And the guys stuck in are the ones that get pooched if it all goes south for them.

Call it a 'melee pool'.  Each side gets one of those, all the time.

I'd consider the idea of letting characters open up other pools, with special abilities (much smaller ones), that work the same way.

So, my side has an assassin.  We have our big melee pool, and we also have our "Stealth pool", that only the assassin puts in on.  What he throws in dumps on the melee, unless there's another stealth killer - then, it's stealth on stealth, until one goes down.

Hmm...

I dunno.  Maybe.  I think there's something to that idea, though - the idea of sizing up the enemy with ideas like "They have ranged superiority, but we have melee.  Wizard, toss down a missile sheild - we have some ass to kick."