A Solution for all that Burning...?

[GnomeBoy]

No, not Lanacane.

I had half a mind to save this up, develop it further and make it part of my own 'third-party' pdf supplement for DCC RPG. But in reality, I'm not going to get around to a supplement dedicated to DCC RPG.

So here is an idea I pitched to Joe a few months back...

I was working on a draft of a home-brewed DCC character sheet, when I realized that all of the attributes have 'stuff' out along next to them (missile attack/dam, languages, etc.) except for Stamina and Personality, which only feed into Fort and Will saves. That's a pretty significant 'only', but I wondered what other bits could fill in that space.

I realized that both could have a Fatigue element added to them. Stamina would relate to physical fatigue and Personality would relate to mental fatigue. After each of those Attributes there could be some check boxes.

Something like:

Stamina 10 (+0) ........ Physical Fatigue |_|_|_|_|_|_| ........ Fort Save +2
Personality 13 (+1) ........ Mental Fatigue |_|_|_|_|_|_| ........ Will Save +1

Each box checked off could translate to a -1 penalty to any d20 roll that would logically be affected by the type of fatigue checked off. Physical feats like fighting, climbing, jumping and so on would be limited by, yes, the Physical Fatigue (perhaps Speed, too, if five or more boxes are checked [then -5 to Speed?]). And things like spellcasting, searching, tracking, calculating would be limited by Mental Fatigue.


Some Sample Causes of Fatigue:

Hard day's ride overland: 2 boxes of Physical Fatigue
Too much to drink last night: 1d3 boxes of Mental Fatigue
Stayed awake 24 hours: 1 box of each, plus 1 box of each for each additional 3 hours.
Some types of poisons: 1 box or more of either or both
Extended hard labor to remove giant gems from giant idol's eye sockets: 1 box Phys.
Swim a Channel: 1d4+1 boxes Phys
Doing your own taxes: 2 boxes Mental


Recovering from Fatigue might be as simple as an extended breather or a good night's rest, or may take longer, all depending on the source of the Fatigue (poisoning might well take longer or need an antidote to recover overnight). Those folks with higher attributes might not be subject to as much Fatigue as others, marking off the first boxes with a dot, equal in number to their attribute bonus, to indicate there is no effect at this stage. For example:

Personality 13 (+1) ........ Mental Fatigue |•|_|_|_|_|_| ........ Will Save +1

When this character accumulates Mental Fatigue, the first box checked has no affect on them. If they suffer 2 points of Mental Fatigue from a night of hard drinking, the same as all of their comrades, they only suffer a -1 penalty to any appropriate rolls, whereas others might suffer the full -2 penalty. In this example, anyone with a attribute modifier of +2 would suffer no ill effects from the night's bender...


I think the general concept works as fairly 'rules light' and it's very versatile. It's better (IMO) than fussy encumbrance rules, but can easily be used to simulate encumbrance (heavy load = 1 or more boxes of Physical Fatigue while borne, and perhaps for a short while after). It opens up an area of damage that's beyond hit points and attribute damage, and does it without much fuss (deeper injuries could be simulated with Physical Fatigue that lasts an extended time; a crit to the head might make for Mental Fatigue as well as normal hp damage; imagine the monster that attacks your mind with 'psionics' by causing Mental and/or Physical Fatigue...!). Mental Fatigue can even be used as a fair simulation of Sanity for those more Lovecraftian Appendix N forays (fill up six boxes and consult the Madness Table)... 'Burning' Physical Fatigue boxes might work as an alternate for the 'Skillburn' Attribute Burn idea from the forums (i.e. becoming FatigueBurn -- only named something better than FatigueBurn).

If there are mechanical obstacles to the concept, I haven't bumped into them yet. It seems fairly easy to apply and track, and something with potentially more of a narrative angle to it than hit points (not that I'd throw hit points out, obviously).

Anyway, I hope at the least, this wasn't a complete loss of time to read. : )

So, yeah, how would that work if characters could also choose to burn Fatigue to improve their rolls? Instead of burning Luck or another stat, you could burn Fatigue, and recover it with rest? I don't think it would completely replace the Burning of Attributes, but it could make a useful alternative choice.

I had/have a plan to use these rules in the campaign idea I had, since I want Lovecraftian elements in the story, and this would make an equivalent to CoC's Sanity rules easy (I've got the ideas, just not the time/players to run it). So I admit, I haven't seen these rules in action at all.

But I'm curious what merits they may or may not have in your eyes...

Again, thanks for reading.

[GnomeBoy]

Crickets.

I'm okay with that.

It's still something I will use to model Sanity -- if not more -- when/if I get to run some DCC of my own.

[JediOre]

Hey Gnomeboy,

I got nothing to add. I'm still waiting to begin some play tests on the beta.

[GnomeBoy]

We need a club: The Beta Hopefuls.

[Abchiptop]

I had replied, odd that it didn't post. Regardless, this reminds me of World of Darkness's health system, and personally, I'm not a fan. It's arbitrary, confusing for new people, and often times vague.
I'm not bashing your idea, I like the idea of fatigue tracking, but the way it's implemented and tracked would likely be ignored at worst, forgotten at best.

Perhaps ruling fatigue at DMs discretion, but id make the players well aware. "Sure you can try to scale this 50ft castle wall, but failure could kill you, and success will wear you out, penalizing you until your next rest on all strength and agility rolls". Stacking multiple penalties is just mean, especially how brutal the game really is

Plus, in my experience, DCC is punishing enough on PCs
Not bashing your idea, just making the players stay honest on fatigue will be rough, and the box idea will just clutter up the character sheet

[GnomeBoy]

I appreciate the criticism, especially since it makes clear things I may not have made clear.

I do see it is almost entirely as a DM's discretion sort of thing. If it makes sense for the situation the characters are in, or fits the tone the DM wants for a particular adventure, they can make use of it. Not using it hurts no one. General exertion need not incur anything under the concept, and IMO it absolutely should not incur anything under this concept. It's for special situations.

Suppose I put my player's characters at the top of the game world's equivalent of Mount Everest? "Tick two boxes of physical fatigue, everyone," makes a nod at simulating high altitude conditions (thin air, cold), without getting very complex and slowing things down. Before that mountaintop, I've ignored the Fatigue idea, but by golly, it fits here.

As for "penalizing you until your next rest on all strength and agility rolls", well, it just depends on the circumstances. That mountaintop example is going to stick around until you get off the mountaintop, or until you're up there for an extended period and acclimate. So it could apply the whole time you're there, or there might be two minutes of narrative after some initial exploration that describes how you've been there for a month. "Now uncheck those boxes, please." Or that unchecking might happen after the "first adventure", as adventure continues on the Roof of the World.

In another case, such as an extreme case of encumbrance, you've got the penalty while carrying the load. A breather as I put it above, would be a few minutes of time without the load. Based on when I've moved myself or helped other people move, sometimes you shift a dresser or something and you can feel pretty wiped out. A few minutes later you're ready to go again. it wouldn't be a penalty all day, in this case, just if you needed to do something else physical (enforced ballroom dancing, perhaps) at more or less the same moment as some other exertion.

A DM might not even have the player tick the boxes, but the system provides the model for how to consider and rule on the situation (i.e. you might apply a small penalty "behind the screen" when appropriate).

On the other hand, if it's used such that a player can burn it to avoid some other penalty, they'd have to understand it in order to use it. But is it really so hard to understand the concept? If they're familiar with D&D (or other RPGs) they're either pretty comfortable with the basic rules of the game anyway, or understand how to learn new RPG rules. If they are unfamiliar, 1) I don't see it as any more complicated (I suppose YMMV) than learning how Corruption or MDoAs work, and 2) it's all Greek to them anyway, so there's going to be some hand-holding to bring them up to speed anyway.

As for the character sheet clutter, well, I don't know what sheet you're using, but I see two big gaps next to Stamina and Personality...

Oh, man, that's certainly more than I should have typed...

But I like the idea. Sue me.

[Coffeedragon]

I like it
As a DM, I like to keep an eye on my players sheets anyway, because to quote House MD, "everybody lies" but perhaps one could have a seperate area to note 'blanket modifiers' such as -2 to all physical or mental actions etc, to help remind players?
In my game, I will likely have a players notes page where I keep track of such penalties, along with ilnesses, curses, etc to help keep my players honest.

What's really nice about this approach is that it simplifies the whole abilityburn issue. Rather than having to adjust your modifiers such as to hit, AC, saving throwswhen you've burned Str or Int or whatever, you simply apply whatever penalty to your normal bonuses.
It's elegantly simple - well done

[GnomeBoy]

...perhaps one could have a seperate area to note 'blanket modifiers'...

On my home-brewed sheet, there's a space to note Fatigue. Now if I'd only get the thing done so I can share it with you...!

Thanks for the kind words.