Rulings Not Rules #4 - Delayed Actions

Has this ever happened to you? You turn to a player and say, "It's your turn, what are you doing?" In return you get perhaps an uncertain look, maybe even a sheepish smile, and a request, "Can I delay my action?"

Listen folks, I don't if this happens to you a lot, and I don't know if it bothers you, but I have a low key hatred of delayed actions. Now, don't get me wrong, there are times and places where it makes sense. Ambushes are essentially all about delaying your action until the mark is in place, and I am fine with that, but when combat is rolling delayed actions bother me in a way I find difficult to articulate. Maybe it's the fact that combat in most RPGs is based on rounds that are around 10 seconds long (though obviously there is variation in both directions). Or maybe it's the indecision that seems to come with the request, when, in fact, the character and player both should be in action mode. 

Regardless as to why I dislike them I suspect that it will never be a problem that goes away. As such it's a problem I need to solve for myself for games I run. Specifically I mean for Dungeon Crawl Classics (and related games) which I tend to be running more often these days, and in DCC there is no specific rule for (or against) delaying actions. 

Rulings not rules, right?

So, then, how do I run delayed actions? 

1) Specify the action.

You can't just delay your turn without a plan, combat just is too fast and as we all know initiative is just a means for us to adjudicate things are are really happening basically simultaneously. So the first thing I need is a specific action. What is the thing that will happen? An attack, a move, a spell ... it must be specific with a target and...

2) What is the trigger for the delayed action?

I don't allow a delay without a clear trigger. Maybe you are delaying an attack on the big bad until the cleric blesses you. Or you are delaying a charge until the thief opens the door. Or delaying a fireball until the end of the round so the other players can get out of the blast area. 

3) (optional) A cost for the delay.

I have only just started thinking about this but I am leaning toward pushing the delaying character's initiative on future rounds to the step where they act with the delayed action. If you roll a new initiative every round you might penalize that character a die step if you wished. Alternately you could do nothing. Characters who delay tend to have higher initiative values and if they are quick to react in that combat maybe that's just fine. 

That's all. It's nothing complex but it prevents waffling, and it ensures that the action can move forward quickly. Combat is fun but it shouldn't take up the entire session and keeping it moving quickly is one of my biggest goals as a judge. 

Rulings Not Rules #3 - Craft Everything!

 

I don't know if this is a "me thing" or an "old school" thing, or what but I notice that not everybody seems to look at every strange resource and every defeated creature, as a source for potential new gear. To me there is an almost instinctive process of evaluating materials in RPGs for future use in upgraded gear. New weapons, new armor, or new tools. 

Example from this past weekend's game:

My cleric of the mountain lord finds a vein of strange glowing rock deep within a cave. Looking at my gear I see that I have the right tools to extract a hunk of it and tell the Judge that I want to do so with the aim to be able to carve a new hammer head from the strange rock. If nothing else I figure its an opportunity for my character to upgrade his primary weapon and holy symbol to be a cool glow in the dark fashion accessory. 

Does this glowy rock have other strange properties? Will I end up with a one of a kind magic item for my efforts? I don't know, probably won't know for a few more sessions. For the moment though I can imagine it'll be something awesome until proven otherwise.

As a player that is my mentality: look at what the adventures give me, and find ways to use the materials and tools in new and creative ways. It's like a mini-game for me. When I run games I am very receptive to the same behavior from others. I see some players engage with the game at this level, building new items, or upgrading existing gear, and I think it makes for a better experience for all at the table.

As I also tend to play and run a lot of post-apocalyptic RPGs this both comes in very handy and feels very true to the genre. That said I see no reason why this cannot work in fantasy RPGs, or even some kinds of sci-fi. Advanced materials, rare minerals, and the like all fill this niche. Heck, much of the aesthetic of Dark Sun comes from the settings infamous scarcity of metal and the resulting propensity for weapons made of natural materials such as bone, chitin, and shell. 

These kinds of gear also allow players to exercise a level of aesthetic control over their characters that may not normally come up in games. Crafting all your gear from the chitinous hide of a certain species of giant insect will not only give your character a unique look but it will telegraph to the NPCs that the character is (presumably) skilled at dispatching said creature. Armor made from destroyed robots, a macuahuitl lined with teeth from slain dinosaurs, or a bow carved from the rib of a vanquished dragon! Keep your eyes out for opportunities to make your gear as cool and unique as you deserve then work with your GM to make it happen!

Still, I am curious if this is something fairly normal or something unique to certain kinds of gamers.

Rulings Not Rules #2 - Missed Opportunity: Fear of the Dark

 

I hate missed opportunities. You always feel a little bad, no matter how much confidence you have in your own abilities as a Game Master. One of my players pointed this one out to me after the session, for which I am very appreciative as otherwise I might have not noticed my error and would not know to fix it later. 

In this case it was, once again, a game of Weird Frontiers. During a combat in a dark cave against some undead, the lone character with a light source fell. The lantern hit the ground. A quick roll to see if it stayed lit came up as a fail. The characters and the undead were plunged into total darkness. 

Total darkness.

While fighting undead.

For level zero characters. 

Now, Weird Frontiers has a mechanic called "Grit" which measures a character's guts, gumption, bravery, sanity, etc, The mechanics are simple enough, a Will save vs the source of the fear or horror, and if you fail you lose some grit and suffer a fear effect based on how much you failed by. 

Easy right? And yet as the Judge I just never thought to call for a Grit Check as the combat plunged into darkness and flailing about blindly. That was my missed opportunity. 

I shouldn't berate myself too much, but as I am trying to evoke a mix of western, horror, and action ... I missed a beat that could really have tied those genres together nicely. 

The next time it happens I'll certainly be better prepared. I've learned from my mistake (such as it was), and I'll remember, hey the dark sucks, and when something is trying to kill you it sucks that much more.

Rulings Not Rules #1 - Dynamite

As this is my first post in a while, and intended as the first in a series, I'll offer some explanation:

Rulings Not Rules is going to be something similar to my Hacking the Cypher System series. Instead of focusing on system hacks however its going to be where I can take a moment to reflect on off the cuff Rulings I make at my table during play to keep things rolling forward. This is especially useful in the space of my games within the Dungeon Crawl Classics extended family, as there are often times that come up in session where a ruling is needed either to prevent having to check the book, or because the book lacks the required info. 

OK, that that out of the way...

Dynamite!

What weird western RPG is complete without some ill advised use of that most iconic of explosives? 

Here's the thing with dynamite though. It's tricky, dangerous, and just because its as easy to use as lighting a fuse, doesn't make it idiot proof. Especially when a character wants to use it in the heat of combat at the spur of the moment. 

The situation: 

A large ritual chamber, the BBEG is working a ritual to raise a spirit from the beyond. The party is also dealing with bone golems and their general ineptitude (this was a level Zero "funnel" adventure). A character decides to place dynamite on the ritual altar in hope of stopping the BBEG with a boom. The character is not a miner, or any other relevant occupation, and has not previously used dynamite. Not possessing a death wish, they desire to place a 10 second length fuse. 

Now, here's where the rulings come in. Perhaps obviously there are no rules for determining proper fuse length for dynamite whilst in combat. So I asked myself in the moment, "Would it be fun if there was a chance that the character got the length of fuse wrong?" The answer was, 100% Yes. 

100%.

Yes.

So, Weird Frontiers has a Luck stat, and I asked for a luck check (a d20 roll under or equal to ones Luck at my table). In my mind the accuracy of the fuse was going to be the intended duration (10 seconds) plus or minus a die roll of d5 seconds. A successful luck check would be PLUS the d5 (because hey, at least it didn't go off early before you could flee), and a failed luck check would be MINUS the d5 (oh no, I'm getting blown up!). 

Needless to say the dice said to heck with you! A natural 20, which is a fumble result on a luck check. Not just bad luck, but horrifically bad luck. So, what to do? Clearly 10 seconds minus d5 seconds was my intent for a simply failed Luck check, but now I was looking at a fumbled Luck check. If 10-d5 seconds was bad, what does worse look like?

I decided to buy myself a few moments to think while the other player at the same Initiative value acted. Their character shot the fuse to activate the dynamite. Now, I don't know if that would work in the real world, but rule of cool 100% applied here. I did remind that the players that dynamite is just nitroglycerine that has been stabilized and is still prone to explosions from high impact; so a miss would be very bad. I also declared that the fuse, being rather a small target would be AC 18 to hit. 

The character managed a 24 to hit. So there we were. I had to decide on the fuse.

A fumble, I decided, would mean that the initial fuse length was just wrong. That length of 10-d5 became 5-d5 seconds. 0-4 seconds to get out of the blast radius of 2 sticks of dynamite. 

I explained the situation to the very tense group. Given that combat rounds in Weird Frontiers (and similar DCC adjacent games) is 10 seconds the best case was about half a round and the worst case was instant detonation. It all came down to the roll of that d5. And of course I wasn't going to roll it! I informed the player of the not-remotely-an-explosives-expert to roll that d5. 

A good roll of 2 meant the fuse had 3 seconds till ka-boom! That allowed the combat round to finish before the dynamite went off. The remaining PCs could try and flee and the villains would get their turns (since they had low initiatives). 

Sadly most of the PCs had already acted, and the BBEG completed his ritual that very turn, but then again ...

In hindsight I'm pretty happy with how this all played out. Maybe not the ill timed explosion, but that's not on me, that's the consequences of the players' actions, and I am always ok with those. I think in a non-combat situation or with a character who could reasonably be assumed to be familiar with dynamite I would have used a skill mechanic instead of a luck check, but again, only if there was something fun to be had from the fuse being the wrong length. If they have enough time to plan, prepare, and execute safely I always want to allow that to happen.