The Making of Crawl! no.13: Part 3.

 

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My continued deep dive in the making of Crawl! no.13: Deathmatch!

I took a good look at my 2nd and 3rd drafts and the stuff I really like was how I was going to do maps. I say "was", because I've changed my mind a tiny bit. I was going to lay heavily into using just point-crawl style maps, with rooms and corridors. If you're not familiar with the mapping style, it is a simple map style found in Mothership RPG and other new-"old school" games and adventures. It's an easy way to do dungeons. It works really well with "Theater of Mind" style playing because the rooms don't have to be completely detailed or even drawn. The problem with that is some people still want maps, and I recognize that. So I decided to make traditional maps, and that's a complication in itself. I still haven't decide the exact look of these maps so this is one of the main reasons Crawl! no. 13 got stalled. But a point crawl design helped me get to playtesting faster. I created tools (tables really) to quickly make deathmatch rooms and corridors, and the first map was designed using these tools. Each room had basic features that matched the "theme" of each room, and each corridor was also random. I really like these tools, I'm keeping them and they'll be found in the issue. Here's a sample of the "first" map:

CRAWLDM1 - The Gateway 

A supernatural dungeon with dung colored walls speckled with bits of jade and obsidian. An alien or arcane motif is etched into each brick. A black void fills the cracks in the ceiling and through what could be arrow slits and anywhere there should be a sky. Shallow cracks glow with an amber light. Faint voices scream in your head. 

Preparation: These areas can be static, or randomly determined as they are discovered.

Predetermine or randomly place point 2, 3, and 4. 

Predetermine or randomly assign teleport pads P1, P2, and P3 to Connections C1.2, C1.3, and C1.4.

Create or roll 3 random corridors, designate them as connections C2, C3, and C4. 
Predetermine or randomly identify point 5’s hidden entrance. 

Suggested Winning Conditions: This introductory map is perfect for a Zero Royale or Free For All with 3 to 4 players.

POINTS

Area 1 - The Gates: Hexagonal, 60’ across 

Feels deep underground. Are those voices in your head?

Cake, slice 3 each
P1: Teleport Pad 25’ from one wall.
C1.1: Archway
C1.2: Archway
C1.3: Archway

Area 2 - Grand Hall: Rectangular, 60’ wide, 100’ long.
Cracked windows to a stormy pink sky.

Cake, slice 4, 1 each corner
Throne at one end.
Random weapon [   ]

Shield, yellow +2 behind throne

P2: Teleport pad at opposite end.
Fountain in the middle---Water

[Possible Secret Exit (see point 5)]

C [    ] to 3

C [    ] to 4 

I have a small, 6 room arena completely designed like this, and started a 2nd one. It worked great, and it was the testbed for the playtesting. But somewhere along the way I decided to expand on the maps a bit further, which you'll see in the final product. I had a change on how I wanted to do each of the rooms, and that's basically the biggest change across the whole project, and the meat of the 4th draft. 

If you paid attention to the TOC from part 2, You'll notice I had a section for Hazard and Artifacts. These sections were also complete, and done in the same bullet point style that the maps were done. I have already teased the artifacts with my lone post from 2022: MÆTA: A Postmodern Patron. Go check it out. But here's a sample of the hazards:

HAZARDS

Hazard Damage Death

1. Lava 2xCL per round “PC” turned into hot slag
2. Slime 1xCL per round "PC" gulped a load of slime
3. Void Instant death "PC" is lost in the void
4. Water DC 10 Fort or 1 Stamina per round after 6 (modified by Stamina) rounds. "PC" sleeps with the fishes

TRAPS

Trap DC Damage Death

1. Nail Trap DC 10+ 1d6 Nails; 1d8 each "PC" was spiked.

2. Laser Trap DC 12+ 1d4 Lasers; 2d6 each "PC" was spiked.

3. Lavaball DC 10 Ref 4d4 “PC” ate a lavaball

4. Spike Varies 1d100 "PC" was squished

5. Moving Wall Varies 2d100 “PC” was squished

These are from the 2nd draft. You get the idea. Right? There are more bits, done in the same way, but that's when Crawl! 13 was going to be more of a toolkit than an adventure. You get a good idea of where no.13 was at by the "mostly done" 2nd Draft.

This leaves us with the 3rd and "final" draft. Next time!

The Making of Crawl! no.13: Part 2

 

Fake news. Although I actually tried. 

Oh man. In April 2019, over a year and a half later I made this enthusiastic post. Boy did I fail. I never really apologized for it either. It's really embarrassing reading it now, but when you read it I go into a little bit of the life difficulties I was having at the time. And believe it or not, I was on a roll. Even though I started from scratch, I was feeling confident. I fully intended on finishing this issue. I wrote a lot. But it took way longer than I expected. I tried. I really tried. Before I knew it, COVID happened. What? Exactly.

I played a lot of Quake. Research!

In August 2020, over a year later, I posted this image and an equally cryptic message. The post was simply to announce it was going into playtesting. I actually finished the zine, pretty much the complete draft. At this point it was almost a total departure from the first one, some story elements remained, but I changed its focus completely. It was really ambitious, I wrote a lot of new rules and adopted (stole) a bunch of others. Here's the contents, and a bit of the Introduction:

Intro to Crawl! Deathmatch

Prepare To Fight

Sequence of Rounds

New Action Rules

New Movement Rules

Cosmic Encounters

Hazard die

Pressure

Cosmic Terror

Arenas

Point Crawl

Hazards

Artifacts

Weapons

Power Ups

Variant Rules

Acknowledgement

Maps

INTRO TO CRAWL! DEATHMATCH

You have been summoned by an unimaginable cosmic force into a supernatural plane of existence. The demands are simple, survive. But are you ready... to fight?

This issue of Crawl! is about running a deathmatch. A deathmatch is typically a free-for-all fight-to-the-death in an arena, or in this case, a series of arenas. These rules focus on the basic player vs player, everyone for themselves battle royales. These rules could allow your players to finally resolve who would win in a fight. But also they allow for different play styles, ideas of which can be found in the Additional Rules chapter. Tips for adding deathmatches to your ongoing campaign can also be found there—in fact, the sample deathmatch dungeon provided is designed to quickly get straight to the action.

You’re probably thinking that anyone can draw up an arena and the characters can just fight. All that is true, and in reality most of you don’t need this zine, many of the rules found within can be found in a lot of other places. None of these concepts are original, or new. But, it hasn’t been done in this way before, especially with DCC RPG.

You can probably see what I was going for. I was still keeping the "toolkit" aspect, but also wrote a bunch of new rules. I wanted to make a fast-paced action-focus game for DCC RPG, and one of the ways I tried to do this was elaborate on the action side of things by introducing new Actions and Movement rules. I attempted this by making one of the biggest mistakes when trying to "streamline" things, I actually made things more complicated. I created a Movement check. The movement check combined two different "skill" or ability checks, Jump and Climb, into one simple check. This complemented a map design element that I was also introducing, which I'll go into deeper later. But I wanted to simplify hazards and traps, and other obstacles to a simple movement check. Basically by giving each of these obstacles a simple hazard DC. I also wrote or elaborated on some procedures, rules clarifications, and a new action I called Strafe. Here are some excerpts from the original draft: 

NEW ACTION RULES 

Combat actions and movement play out per standard rules. There are a handful of new rules to establish a fast-paced and hectic gaming mode, some changes to the standard rules, and some clarification regarding the interaction between new and standard rules.

Strafe Attack: A character can attack and move up to their speed as an action, but with a -1d penalty. A strafe attack can be combined with a charge, multiple attacks, etc. When used in combination with a special move action (e.g. strafe jumping, clearing obstacles, or avoiding hazards), the movement check is also at a -1d penalty. All other standard rules still apply.

The Strafe action was the only real new rule (for this chapter), in this same section there were clarifications on existing rules, and how they worked with any of the new rules.  

NEW MOVEMENT RULES

Understanding movement within the map will prove to be the most important skill to have as a player. These new rules will help their characters move faster and further.

Normal movement up to the PCs movement speed brings no risk, so no roll is needed. But strafing, fancy maneuvers, and tricky jumps risk falling, slipping off edges, and fumbles. These moves need checks and thus can fumble like an attack. Also note when when performing a strafing attack, the movement check suffers the same -1d penalty. Combining a strafe jump and strafe attack in the same round is allowed and explicitly encouraged! 

//Movement checks. A movement check is a d20 based skill check that's modified by a move modifier, which is based on the corresponding ability modifier, their PC's speed, and any armor check penalties.  

Hahah. There's this table in here that I'm not going to share. It had to do with a new stat called the Movement modifier, The "Move mod" was based on the PC's speed (in feet) and modified by a combination of Strength and Agility modifiers, and any AC check penalties. This modifier would be listed on the PC sheet right next to their movement speed. So PC sheet would have something like this: Speed 20' (+2). I still think there are good ideas with this, I just don't think it really added anything overall. All these rules tied into the system of movement checks and hazard DCs I designed for the action I wanted. I wanted obstacles, hazards, and traps handled quickly. 

Strafe Attack: Usually -1d. See New Action Rules above. 

Strafe Jump: A character can extend their move by incorporating a jump as part of the move. This jump is a Strength check, modified by any encumbrance or AC check penalties, and the distance is half the total roll. The strafe jump must proceed at least 5’ of movement, but it can be part of the total move. It can’t extend a standard long jump, it’s more of the skip in an olympic triple-jump. Yes, you can attempt a Strafe Jump after each move action. Gravity is strange here, this is a feature not a bug. 

I was really excited for my strafe action rules. I wanted a lot of action, so I tried to come up with a way to encourage attacks while moving. I might consider it an optional rule for competitive tournament style gaming.

Here's where I get weird. One of the biggest departures from standard DCC rules and one I cribbed from my favorite game at the time, the Stay Frosty hack, Slipgate Chokepoint. (These games are all vibes, btw. I'm a huge fan of Quake, and I can talk about how Quake and D&D® have very similar histories, and how I love them for the same reasons, but I digress.) They have a Danger Die and rules for Tension. The Danger die is basically a loaded "encounter" die. The concept of a loaded encounter die comes from the Hazard System by Necropraxis, combined into a Stress system from a game called Peridition by Courtney Campbell (!, legend designer, and this game is nuts). I decided that I wanted this in my deathmatch. I like the concept of the building Stress, which is similar to systems found in CoC or Mothership. Cosmic horror fits the theme on many, MANY, levels. Here are some excerpts from the this draft:

COSMIC PRESSURE

Gods are real, kind-of. Just not the way we think they are. There are cosmic powers that are so obscene and so arcane that mortal minds would never understand. For the feeble mind, even slightest sliver of knowledge would drive them insane. So imagine being a simple farmer minding your business, and suddenly appearing in a realm where the sky cries blood and screams sing through your ears. And the first person you see is trying to kill you--everything is trying to kill you. 

HAZARD DIE

Crawl! Deathmatch uses the concept of a loaded encounter roll that adds pressure, triggers hazards, manages time, and keeps the action moving (see acknowledgments for more info on the Hazard System, Stress, and Tension). A Hazard die is rolled for each character upon entering a different area, or if spending too much time in a dangerous one. Every roll is a d6 on the Hazard Die Result table. Note that some areas will have specific results or events that may override or replace “standard” Hazard die results, especially results of 5+. Some “illogical” results can be ignored if necessary, or if something similar makes more sense. 

 

There isn't an easy way of posting the table:

Hazard Die Result

1. Cosmic Terror; Surprised if entering combat.
2. Tension; gain +1 Pressure
3. Area Event; gain +1 Pressure; traps, hazards, encounters, trigger or activate.
4. Expiration; runes, temp power-ups, temp hp, etc. fade or expire.
5. Cosmic Edge; minor artifact, extra action, move, or spoor. 
6. Cosmic Influence; major artifact, gain surprise if entering combat, or clue to secret.

Pressure, almost completely cribbed from Stay Frosty, was a chart that showed the benefits of building pressure. It's one of the core rules of Stay Frosty, and what gave the game its namesake. Your PC got better as you gained "pressure", or "staying frosty": 

PRESSURE

Pressure is the accumulation of stress and tension in this dangerous environment. It also represents cosmic pressure from the unknown powers that brought them here. It results in the embodiment of control over “Fight or Flight”, it’s the “Zone” of a top athlete, or a “runner’s high” by making them sharper and focused. These benefits stack.

Pressure Level Benefits

1. Nothing
2. +1d to Damage rolls
3. +1d to Saving throws
4. +1d to Initiative checks
5. +1d to Ability checks vs hazards, obstacles and traps.
6. +5’ to Movement speed

At some point Cosmic Terror changed to Existential Terror. I'm sure it would have been fixed or ironed out by some editing. My editor eyes are seeing all kinds of problems while I read this thing. 

EXISTENTIAL TERROR

Once overwhelmed with the stress and cosmic horror. They regain half their hit points and roll 1d6 on the following effects table. Unless otherwise noted, these effects last until the character is fully rested, or they die. 

Existential Terror Effects

1. Can’t Take It Anymore: Drop all weapons and armor, and face their enemies head on, with only their bare hands. Will not pick up any items. 
2. Screw This, Outta Here: Immediately flee using all their movement and the best of their abilities to leave. Make DC 10 Willpower save every round to shake out of it, or keep running and jumping to get as far away from everyone possible. Cannot pick up any items.
3. Jelly Legs: Suffer a -1d to all movement based checks (including hazards and obstacles) and reduce movement speed by -10’. 
4. Muttering to Themselves: They start talking to themselves, they’re easily distracted and unfocused. Reduce their Hazard die, and Intelligence or Personality based skill and Ability checks by -1d. 
5. Let’s Do This: They are oddly, if not irrationally, in it to win it. +1 to attacks.
6. Rage: Until the end of this or the next combat, all damage is increased by +1d, but any ammo is used at twice its normal rate.  

I don't hate these rules, to be honest. I just think they're a bit too much or too ambitious. During playtesting I found that managing Pressure actually slowed things down, and that the Terror effects happened more frequently than expected. Can't say enough about playtesting, playtest, play-test, PLAY. TEST. I am keeping elements of the Hazard die. It's something I now use in all my games. And it adds something special to the "Arenas", the maps. This I'm most proud of, and it deserves its own chapter. Remember how I said, at the time of this writing, I'm at the start of the 4th draft? I'm still talking about the 2nd draft. I'll see you in Part 3.  

The Making of Crawl! no.13: Part 1

Remember this? Some of you got really excited.

Crawl! no. 13: Deathmatch is still a work in progress. At the time of this writing, it's at the beginning of its 4th major re-write. I have been struggling with issue for several years, this was because several factors, which I rather not go into details, but simple motivation and inspiration is enough. When it was first announced, back in September 2017, it was going to be simple. It was basically going to be a toolset for creating random arenas, their traps, and features. A possible "gladiator" class, some new weapons, and arena specific rules. There were also several submissions that fit the theme that were in consideration. The idea was the PCs are sucked away from their normal day, into some cosmic battle arena, that's curated by some weird malevolent power or powers. This power was going to be left vague, so they could be one of the PC's deity or patron, The main system I was developing, and the meat of the issue, was a series of random tables that determined their appearance after being dragged through cosmic space into the arena. The table was a Personality check, and the I expected the players to elaborate and describe what their appearance in the arena looked like. I was hoping for ideas like like "asleep in bed", "on the john" for "poor" appearances, or if the player rolled well enough, they could've describe favorably, or the PC could have been totally ready for it. This was the beginning of the time I was really wanting to lean into collaborative and emergent story telling. I wanted to give the player a cue to work with, and have them describe how they're introduced into an arena. If they rolled poorly, they could describe their character as "appearing in a flash, with their pants around their ankles in a squatting position" or favorably, "my PC was totally expecting this, and I'm wearing my best outfit and everything". It sounded cool, but it looked like this: 

...And The Crowd Goes Wild!!! 

 

Presentation, Reception and Reputation 

 

Presentation and Reception -- Upon entering the arena, the crowd can cheer ecstatically, or jeer with pure disdain. The response is determined by a Personality check on Table XX-1: Presentation & Reception. This will determine how impressive or disappointing their entrance is. This can result with a favor or blessing from the audience or sponsor. Or the opposite may happen, resulting with pure disapproval or a curse for the duration of the match. The check is made for each competitor, it’s very possible they all get favorable responses, or they can all get poor ones. 

 

Table XX-1: Presentation and Reception. 
Roll Result
1 or less Immediately hated or ridiculed, the spectators get hostile, and the sponsor may show contempt with a curse or condemnation.
2-4 Mocked and booed, Spectators and sponsors are wary. Hostility is likely.
5-9 Disinterest and boredom from the spectators and sponsors.
10-14 Some cheers from the spectators, a lukewarm response from the sponsors, but interest nonetheless.
15-19 The spectators go wild, and they have the attention of the hosts. A spectator may express their joy with a minor boon or blessing.
20+ The spectators are ecstatic! The sponsor may bless the competitor with a great boon or favor.

 

Optionally, independent of allies, there may be spectators that feel sympathetic to the disfavored combatant, especially if they’re losing. If a fight is clearly one-sided, these compassionate types may bestow a minor boon to even the odds. With the judge’s discretion, the losing PC may make a Luck check, success means they receive a minor boon from pity. 

Then it went into a system where throughout the game the characters can earn boons or banes from their performances, showboating, etc. It was basically a fame system that granted you perks and shit, ala XCrawl. 

Reputation -- if deathmatches are regular affairs in your campaign, a Reputation Bonus may be earned for any victors in a deathmatch. This rating is indicated by a die type. For the first match won, this die is a d3. When, or if, a third match is won, this die will go up one step (+1d) in the dice chain. On the sixth successful event, it will go up another die (+1d), etc. (See Table XX-2: Reputation Die.) This bonus die is added to the Personality check on the Presentation & Reception table. Judges may modify the roll due to location or moods, e.g. the locals may not be familiar with this particular champion, or the audience may be extra excited or upset from an earlier match.

Matches Won Reputation Bonus Die Type

1 d3

3 d4

6 d5

12 d6

24 d7

48 d8

+24 +1d etc.   

Boons and Blessings

Chanting name! Motivating chants or even songs.

+1

+1d

Free re-roll. Free roll even if no roll is allowed (eg. allow a save even if there’s “no saving throw”.) 

Spell cast in their favor. 

Temp hp. 

Attack spell in their favor.  

Healing. hd or ability points.

Magic Items or weapons.

This was as far as I got, you can tell it trails off into a brain dump list. I didn't like it. I was also working on XCrawl, and it made no sense to reinvent the wheel. So I scrapped it. There were also some lists of random areas ideas, and some notes referencing Enter the Dagon and Spell duel stuff. And so it went back to the drawing board. No one heard from me again for a couple years. Those were miserable years to say the least. The misery wasn't because of this crap sub-system, mostly outside crap. 

To be continued in Part 2.