Elthos RPG Rules Key Mechanics

 Elthos RPG Key Mechanics

• General Resolution Matrix (GRM): The GRM is the core mechanic of the Elthos RPG system, used to determine success or failure for all actions in the game, including combat, skill use, and mystic powers. It involves comparing an Attack Level (AL) or Skill Level (SL) against an Armor Class (AC) or Difficulty Level (DL). You always have a chance to succeed and a chance to fail, no matter the odds.

• Chance to Succeed (CTS): The CTS is a numerical value on the GRM that represents the target number a player needs to roll or exceed on a single six-sided die (1d6) to succeed at an action. The CTS is calculated by adding the difference between the AC and AL (or DL and SL) to a fixed GRM Root value of 4. A roll of 1 is always considered a failure, even if the CTS is 1, and a roll of 6 is always a success.

• Character Generation: Character generation involves several steps:

  • Selecting a Character Race: Each race has typical Level, Requisite minimums and maximums for Strength, Wisdom, and Dexterity, Movement Points, and special attributes.
  • Generating Character Requisites: Requisites, representing Strength, Wisdom, and Dexterity, are generated through Random Roll, Assignment, or Allocation, influencing a Character's abilities and potential.
  • Selecting an Adventure Class: Classes have specific Requisite requirements and influence the skills a character can learn.
  • Selecting a Character Level: Characters begin at 1st level (0 Experience Points) and advance through successful adventures, gaining new skills and abilities.
  • Rolling for Character Heritage: Heritage, determined by a 1d6 roll multiplied by 100, represents starting money and reflects a Character’s parent's social standing.
  • Learning Skills and Mystic Powers: Characters learn skills and mystic powers by spending Skill Learning Points (SLP) and Mystic Learning Points (MLP), which are awarded at each new level.
  • Selecting Character Armors: Armor provides an Armor Class Modifier (ACM) and may have a Dexterity Modifier (DXM), Damage Absorption (DAB), a Movement Modifier (MOV), and a cost.
  • Calculating Armor Class (AC): AC is calculated using the Total Armor Class Modifier, Total Armor's Dexterity Modifier, Modified Dexterity with Armor, and the Revised Dexterity Bonus.
  • Selecting Character Weapons: Weapons are categorized as Light, Medium, or Heavy, each with a Damage Bonus, Attack Level Modifier, and cost, influencing their effectiveness in combat.
  • Calculating Weapon Attack Levels: Weapon Attack Levels are calculated based on Character Level, Dexterity Bonus, the Weapon's Attack Level Modifier, and whether the weapon skill is considered Primary, Elective, or Unlearned for that Character.
  • Selecting Character Equipment.
  • Determining Character Life Points & Mystic Points: Life Points are based on Strength and Character Level, while Mystic Points depend on Wisdom and Character Level, both potentially modified by a Base Health Bonus at 1st level.
  • Determining Mystic Attack Level & Mystic Armor Class: Both Mystic Attack Level (MAL) and Mystic Armor Class (MAC) are calculated by adding the Character Level to the Wisdom Bonus.
  • Naming & Placing Characters: Players name their Characters and, in collaboration with the GM, develop a brief history and starting location within the game world.

• Combat: Combat can be played Narratively or Tactically:

  • Narrative Combat: The GM describes the combat situation and environment, with players and enemies resolving actions using the GRM.
  • Tactical Combat: Utilizes Combat Maps to visualize character positions, ranges, and tactical options, requiring movement rules and more complex calculations.
  • Combat Experience: Awarded when an opponent or group of opponents is defeated. Experience Points are calculated based on the vanquished opponents' Levels divided by the victors' Levels, multiplied by an Experience Gain Multiplier (EGM), with each party member receiving an equal share.

• Skills:

  • Skill Experience: Characters earn Experience Points (XP) for successful skill use, with the amount varying based on skill type (Primary, Elective, Unlearned) and Difficulty Level.
  • Primary Skill: Used at one Level above the current Character Level. They earn “Prime Experience” when used successfully.
  • Elective Skill: Start at Skill Level 2 and go up one Skill Level for every Level the Character advances.
  • Unlearned Skill: Always used at 1st Level.
  • Difficulty Level: The Difficulty Level for a skill is determined by its Difficulty Level Type, which can be Combat, GM Fiat, Helpers, Requisite Based, or Player Gambit.

• Death & Damage:

  • Life Points (LP): Represent physical health; damage from attacks is deducted from LP. Falling to 0 or below LP results in incapacitation, with varying degrees of severity.
  • Mystic Points (MP): Represent mental and spiritual energy. Mystic attacks typically target MP, potentially leading to mental and magical impairment.
  • Recuperation: Both LP and MP regenerate at a rate of +10% per Character Level per night of sleep.
  • Channeling: Characters can transfer MP to LP (and vice-versa) at a rate of +1 LP per 3 MP (or +1 MP per 3 LP) in emergencies.

• Mystic Powers:

  • Spells and Miracles: Mystic powers are categorized as Spells or Miracles, with each power having a Level that dictates its MP cost and learning requirements.
  • Mystic Combat: Uses MAL vs. MAC, with successful attacks usually inflicting Mystic Point damage.
  • Mystic Items: Mana Gems, Artifacts, and Relics are objects that hold and can enhance mystic power.
  • Mystic Power Crafting: GMs can create new Spells and Miracles by determining the values for Effect, Cast Time, Geometry, Duration, and Range.

Elthos RPG Comparison with other RPG Systems

Elthos RPG Comparison with other popular Tabletop RPG Systems in terms of rules efficiency

Core Mechanic:

Elthos uses a single d6 roll against a Chance to Succeed (CTS) for all actions. This is simpler than many other systems:

- D&D uses a d20 + modifiers vs. target number

- GURPS uses 3d6 roll under

- World of Darkness uses d10 dice pools

The Elthos system is quite efficient, as it uses a single die and a straightforward calculation.

Character Creation:

Elthos has a structured character creation process that's somewhat similar to other traditional RPGs. It's more detailed than some narrative-focused games (like FATE or Powered by the Apocalypse games) but less complex than systems like GURPS or Shadowrun.

Skills and Advancement:

The skill system in Elthos, with Primary, Elective, and Unlearned skills, offers a middle ground between very detailed skill systems (like GURPS or BRP) and broader approaches (like D&D 5e's proficiency system).

Combat:

Elthos offers both narrative and tactical combat options, which is a flexible approach. Many systems focus on one or the other. The combat system seems less complex than games like D&D or Pathfinder, which have many specific combat actions and rules.

Magic System:

The Mystic Powers system in Elthos appears to be more flexible and potentially simpler than the rigid spell lists in games like D&D. It's closer to systems like Mage: The Ascension or Ars Magica in its approach to magic creation.

Experience and Advancement:

Elthos uses a level-based system with experience points, similar to D&D, but with a more granular approach to skill improvement. This is more detailed than some systems but less complex than purely skill-based advancement systems.

Conclusion:

Overall, Elthos appears to strike a balance between simplicity and depth. It's more streamlined than highly complex systems like GURPS or Rolemaster, but offers more granularity than very rules-light systems like Lasers & Feelings or Risus.

The use of a single d6 for all rolls is particularly efficient, reducing the need for multiple dice types. The General Resolution Matrix (GRM) provides a consistent framework for resolving actions, which can help speed up play once players are familiar with it.

The system was designed to offer enough depth for satisfying character development and tactical play, while keeping the core mechanics relatively simple. This balance could make it more efficient than some popular systems, especially for groups that prefer a middle ground between narrative focus and detailed simulation.

 

A Small Poemish Thing - The Edition Wars ...

Upon the reading of this fair post, my mind a'lit with the fiery inspiration, so...

People who didn't notice these things at the dawn of time, and therefore didn't create their own homebrew RPG systems that made actual sense to them fell into The Great Miasma, never to return from thence. They are there today, wandering soul'striken from edition to edition, ever groaning, ever the darkened scowl and storm-brow furrowing...

Those who escaped to heather-fields of lightened systems a'joy in everlasting bliss, owners of their own worlds... worlds that make sense to them, that do not change on some corporate cretin's whimsy-doodle. Ahhh... fair winds a'light to catch my sails, thou blessed thing! My rules! My rules!

Some Thoughts on the Indie RPG Industry

Over the past few days a few of us have been discussing the pros and cons, and ups and downs, bright sides and dark sides of the Indie RPG Book Publishing industry. You can find the full conversation here: Original Thread on G+. What follows is my summary and the conclusions that I've drawn thus far. I'd be curious to hear what you think.

...

At the end of the day what really matters? That's the question. I think a lot of people who read this thread might come away with the feeling that I'm pretty gloom and doom about the Indie RPG Book Publishing industry. And that's a fair take on it, frankly. As an industry I think it's really problematic. In summery there are two reasons for that.

1) There is already a massive glut in the market of RPG Books, and most of those are minor innovations on previously existing systems.

2) The glut has produced a downward spiral in terms of pricing, and this has a deleterious effect on everyone in the industry, not just the people who are pricing at zero or Pay-What-You-Want. The fact that this option has become so prevalent that DriveThruRPG has created a special button for it suggests that the state of the industry is such that negligible price points have become the prevailing expectation for Indie Games. And what this does is make the entire effort (and it is massive) to produce an Indie RPG completely worthless monetarily speaking. And in fact, most Indie Publishers who have been through the ringer will tell you - don't expect to quit your day job doing this. There's 1500 RPG titles out on DriveThruRPG now, and that number is growing by about 10 a month. You are far more likely to lose money at this than make money.

So where is the bright spot in all of this? Actually, I see several.

1) The drive towards negligible price points will weed out those who are in this for the wrong reasons. If you are in this for money, you will be disappointed and probably not do it again.

2) Those who are in this for the love of the art will still proceed to produce wonderful RPGs because it is easier now than ever before, and that's cool.

3) Since it's hard to imagine completely original rules systems for RPGs given the plethora of systems out there we can probably be satisfied to know that most likely if we have a vision of a way to run an RPG that works best for us, there are probably rules out there that do it that way (or close enough for us to reasonably easily house rule), and so we don't have to invent new wheels. There's lots and lots of wheels rolling around.

The upshot for Indie RPG Rules Book Publishers is this ... you will probably lose money at it, but if you don't care about that, and are doing this for the love of the art, then you will likely be satisfied in the end. You will learn a lot, hone your own game down to a fine system through play testing up the wazzu, you create enthusiasm for your efforts among your friends and acquaintances, you wind up with a really spiffy rules book that looks fabulous and you're genuinely proud of, and you'll have shared it out the world and maybe there will be 200 people out there who downloaded it, and 20 of those who actually paid for it, and of that maybe you'll get 5 or 10 people who play your rules system, enjoy it, and write to you about it saying Thanks, and offering their viewpoint on it. Which is actually pretty awesome.

Maybe all of that will cost you a lot of time and some money (to get the artwork and layout and stuff). But hobbies always cost people money. That's normal and who cares?

The only people likely to come away disappointed are those who are in this to try and make a career out of publishing their Indie Rules Books. That is unlikely to happen at this point, and for those people the effort, time and cost will not be compensated for by a few people saying "that's cool, thanks."

But for the RPG Artistes who simply enjoy the process of honing and working on creating a quality game for themselves and a few friends and handful of strangers, and don't mind spending some money on it, it's a wonderful time indeed to be alive. Never before have we had such a fantastic opportunity to create high quality work at such a low cost. We should revel in it.

But for Pete's sake... don't expect to quit your day job.

At least for now. My final note on this (probably not final, come to think of it) is this ... I believe the future of RPGs as a form of entertainment in the 21st Century is bright. There will come GM assistance tools, and all kinds of amazing technologies that will make GMing easier... and potentially profitable. And though creating new Rules Systems may not be a promising area of endeavor as there is already a glut of those, the area of promise is in creating settings and honing one's skills as a GM to play those settings with fantastic creativity and style. And if I don't miss my guess in the coming years we will find out that _that_ is where the money is.

So keep the faith, and don't be discouraged if your Rules Books don't top the charts and you can't quit your day job on it... keep honing your creative skills. You'll have a great time doing so, your players will appreciate it, and who knows? Maybe there will be in fact a market for you to enter once the industry catches up with technologies that make it possible for you to do GameMastering Professionally. Just a hunch. ;)

Some Rumminations On the Never Ending Revisions of D&D

I have been following this thread on Google+: Original Post ... One of the later comments by Vincent Florio caught my eye:

"The newer the editions AKA "the more crap they pile into the books, and the less imagination is needed.. its all presented for you... no need to think. If its not written, it can't happen." Editions."

Which got me thinking ...

This trend started, I suppose, with AD&D, and continued at pace with a steady stream of new editions, total rewrites, and world-crushing changes every few years.

But for Pete's sake - Why?  Because, I suppose, that was TSRs business model, and WotC/Hasbro have simply kept the thing going in the original and most obvious direction. Nothing new under the sun here. If your business model is "we sell rules books for a game" then you're going to have to update, change, re-write, and new-ify your rules every so often, or you will go out of business. So every few years you're going to have to tacitly admit "The old rules from last version totally suck! But our NEW Rules are teh Awesome!" Over and over again. Of course.  It's obvious.

D&D rules went from a relatively light weight game with three small (but highly magical) booklets, to a heavy weight game with many books, tons of rules and tons of (needless) complexity. They then realized how sucky all that was and came up with the next edition, which promised to be much better, except it wasn't. It just was sucky in different ways. Why? Because it's too complicated. So the next edition had to be produced. This one also sucked, but in totally different ways than the previous two. Each time it seems they fixed some things, and broke other things. And each version, of course, has some people who learned that Edition first, and so for them it's "home", and they like it. And that's a good thing. It's kept the hobby alive. And I'm glad for that. It's a fun hobby and I think it's fabulous. I like it to thrive. So don't get me wrong - though I'm complaining about it, I also am glad it happened. 

This was not the only possible business model for TSR/WotC/Hasbro, by the way... but it's the one they chose, and the one everyone lives with.  My beef with it is that it could have been better than this.

On the positive side had they chosen a more efficient business model there may not have been room for the Godzillions of Indie RPGs coming out all the time. There might not have been a need for them.  So that's another good thing that came out of the mess.

Ah? What would the alternative business model have looked like? Ok. I think I have an idea... It could have focused first and foremost on working out an actual rules system that is clean, elegant, flexible, modular and efficient.  Step 2 would have been to produce modules that could be plugged into anyone's world, free of timelines, and any kind of backstory roots so that each GM could use the module for it's ideas and characters, and flexibly modify it's backstory to fit into their own world. But of course, I don't think they considered it. Meanwhile, the modules market died off quite some time ago.  It seemed robust at first, but then for some reason people stopped buying D&D Modules.  I'm not quite sure why, but I asked around, and the answers I got went something like "I couldn't easily figure out how to fit it into my World... so I started making my own adventures and that worked fine for me after I got the hang of it."   Hmmm... interesting.  Does that mean there's no market for Modules?  I suspect there is a market for them.  If they are done right.  That's just a hunch, though, and I'm far from certain about that.  I might experiment around with the idea and see if there's anything to my theory.

Anyway, I think that this was Gary Gygax's vision for the future of RPGs but I suspect it got derailed by the business forces that assumed control of TSR and kicked him off the board. So after that they didn't quite run the thing into the ground, but more like they ran it into the misty fens and it's been slowly grinding away there ever since.  Revision after revision of something-fixed-something-broke.  Or something like that. That's my take on it, anyway. Frankly, I never really got that into the various Editions of D&D because I had taken a different Gamesmastering path from the outset.

Homebrewers from the days of old foresaw all of this and avoided it by following Gygax's advice from the introduction of 'Men & Magic'.

"These rules are as complete as possible within the limitations imposed by the space of three booklets. That is, they cover the major aspects of fantasy campaigns but still remain flexible. As with any other set of miniatures rules they are guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign. They provide the framework around which you will build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity your time and imagination are about the only limiting factors." - Gary Gygax, Men & Magic, p. 1

We interpreted this to mean that we should take the first three D&D books as a template and build our own systems from there.  "Grown your own".  So we did.

I remember discussing the future of RPGs with one of my fellow GMs back in 1978 and we concluded that the TSR business model would inevitably lead to exactly what happened. We shrugged and said "We have our own worlds and our own systems to run them. Tether us not to thy never-ending revisions, oh TSR! We deny thee!" and that was that.  We were staunchly Anti-TSR.  Happily GMing our homebrews ever after.

Naturally, I encourage GMs to do likewise. And it certainly seems that many do. Which is why the Indie RPG scene is so robust, I think. As for the rest - hey, you know what? If you have fun and enjoy it, then you're doing it right. There is no such thing as "BadWrongFun" in my opinion. Just remember, though, if you ever wind up feeling stuck ... there's plenty of alternatives out there.  And Grow Your Own is one of them.  Just go back to Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and Wilderness Adventures and fix the bugs your own way.  The possibilities of a simple and elegant solution to RPG rules are myriad, and probably infinite.   Try it.  You might just find you really enjoy creating your own rules.  I did.  It was fun.  And I'm kinda a fan of what I put together.  It certainly works for me.  And my players have over the years given me plenty of reason to believe that my system works wonders.  So ... I encourage my fellow GMs to try it.  Grow Your Own.  It's great.

As for Vincent's point, I agree... it certainly does seem that they are progressively removing the need for people to use their own imagination, and attempting to provide us with a system that allows us not to have to think.   It's a failed proposition, of course, and counter to all that is good about RPGs, but that almost seems besides the point.  It fits their business model, which now has advanced to a new level of retardation.  Not only is it imperative that they change the rules, but they seem to also have  concluded that they must dummy down the rules in order to expand their customer base outward to those who have no imagination to begin with.  What we might call "The Ignorant Masses".  I suspect that WotC has decided that those people absolutely need a rules system to tell them exactly what to do, how to do it, what to think, and how to imagine everything.   Of course they haven't gone quite that far, and so there's room for creativity in the game... but there's a trend at work here, and I think Vincent put his finger on the pulse of the thing.   WotC/Hasbro seems to have come to the conclusion that they should be making a pencil and paper tabletop video game, because that will expand their customer base.  LOLRZ.

On the other hand, WotC might not agree that this is what they are doing.  I wouldn't be surprised if the designers of D&D E5 are highly convinced that it really is a great new system that solves the problems of all the previous Editions.   But then again I also wouldn't be surprised if they're not sitting in the back room groaning about the Pointy Haired Boss and how many bone-headed things they were forced to do to keep Upper-Upper-Upper Management happy.   I'd certainly be curious to be a fly on the wall over there at D&D HQ and actually find out what they're really thinking.   But from my point of observation it does seem like things went off the rails long ago, and that's pretty much why.  In the same way that the rules of a game are determinant of how the Players will behave, the business model of a company is determinant of how its products will evolve.   And this business model was just plain BadWrongFun.

Wisdom vs. Intelligence

There are some people in life who are very intelligent, perhaps super-genius-level mental giants... who also happen to be unwise.  Despite all of that amazing brain power, they still make unbelievably foolish decisions.   I know several such people in the real world.  One I'm thinking of was studying to be both a doctor and a lawyer... because she could.  She had the brains to memorize and cogitate all of that stuff.  Amazing.  But then she married a biker who wound up screwing up her life and things went south from there.   Oh well.  She amounted to nothing.   But is still amazingly smart at math and figures and history and geology and all sorts of facts based things.

Conversely there are some people who are wise, but not particularly good at things that involve Big-Brains.  But they make good life decisions, and are happy people, enjoying their less brainy pursuits patiently and without stress or life-disabling anxiety.  They are peaceful souls.

So that brings to mind that in my original Elthos RPG system I used to have two Requisites, one for Intelligence and one for Wisdom, which of course was gleaned from the original D&D rules.  Intelligence was what Spell Chanters want, while Wisdom is what Clerics want.  This too was a bit overly simplified, in the sense that there could also be evil clerics, who also make very very bad life decisions.   You know the type.  Evil, wicked Clerics can do a lot of harm to others as well as themselves, raising undead, sacrificing virgins to nameless deities from the black depths, you know that sort of guy.  So it's actually really not quite right that the Cleric should, as a class, require a high requisite.  Maybe it should be that the Cleric if Good requires high, but if Evil requires low.   So the rule might be better stated as Clerics require an Extreme Wisdom, either high or low.

Now, all of this is kind of a problem for me in my new, revised, and vastly shrunk-down-to-size version of my rules system, named Elthos "One Die System".  It uses, of course you can tell, one six-sided die.  And it also has far fewer requisites... in fact the absolute minimum I could get away with.   Strength (which covers Constitution, and Endurance), Wisdom (which covers Intelligence), and Dexterity (which covers in my old system Agility).  I dispensed with Appearance, Voice and Charisma altogether.   So the ODS has three requisites.   And each of the four classes requires some minimum combination of those, as per usual for traditionalist style RPGs.

But with only one requisite, Wisdom, it makes it a bit of a challenge.  How do I, mechanically, handle the distinction between Clerics and Spell Chanters?   Well, in the ODS I don't.  I just use the same Requisite, and we kind of glide along with that, with the distinction being simply the Player's option when selecting Character class, and the slight difference that Spell Chanters require a minimum of 4 (out of 6), while Clerics require a minimum of 5 Wisdom to be eligible for those classes.   After two years of continuous play testing it has actually never shown up as a problem, nor have the Players expressed any concern about it.

So how much does it matter?   It depends.   If you are playing a Simulationist style game (see GNS Theory), it would probably matter a lot more than if you're playing a Narativist game.   In my case, since I tend toward Narativism over Simulationism, it's ok.   For other GMs it might not be ok.   But for me and my merry band of Players it's been nothing but fun, and so I'm inclined to keep the system the way it is.   With the possible exception of adopting this idea that Evil Clerics must have a low Wisdom, while Good Clerics must have a high Wisdom.

Elthos Adventure Guild Protocols I

The Adventurer's Guild of Elthos offers some general Guildlines on Mission Planning that are taken from the tome of Adventure Guild Protocols:










1) Recon whenever possible.
2) Consider options and possible outcomes.
3) Have contingency plans thought out.
4) Try not to rely on unknown variables (such as a person's reaction)
5) Keep it simple, and have clear objectives.
6) Equip the party based on the plan.
7) Move quickly, stay on target, achieve the objective, and return.
8) Do not get side tracked.
9) Map and take notes whenever feasible.

This advice is provided to all members of the Guild who survive their first adventure mission, and is given as a short speech by the Guild Master of the Hall.   He also often provides a few examples of times when planning went well, and produced success, and when planning was minimized, leading to disaster.

The Guild Master, in this case Rothmon, Guild Master at the Hobbinton Hall, also may see fit to mention that Guild Plans can take time to develop.  A proper reconnaissance, accumulation of known facts, research on existing knowledge in the Library, and the study of any related maps, is somewhat time consuming, but produces Mission Plans that can be distributed with the proper Ratings.   Mission Ratings are by Level, he explains, and those levels correspond to Party Level within the Guild Order.  First Level Adventure Groups will be offered 1st Level Missions.  2nd Level Adventure Groups will be offered 2nd Level Missions.  And so forth. 

Successful Missions earn money in accordance with the Mission Level.   1 silver (10 Iron) per Level per Party Member is paid, and Guild Experience Points are assigned by the Guild Master based both on the Mission (10 Points per Mission Level + Any additional points for exemplary use of Skills).   The Experience Points are viewed as a way to determine when members are to achieve new Levels, and learn new Skills.  While Rothmon is the first to admit the system is not perfect, he also will be inclined to add that it "works well enough, and has served the Guild sufficiently for many years".

Loot gained during the course of any Mission is shared equally among Adventure Group Members.  

Maps and useful information on discoveries will be paid for by the Guild Master according to the quality and value of the information.

Discovered Mystical Artifacts must be shown to the Guild Master, studied, and cataloged by the Guild Librarian.  The Items will then be distributed to the Group by voting among the group members.  The general Guidelines for distribution of Mystical Artifacts are:

1) 1st Consideration is who can use the item best.
2) 2nd Consideration is to distribute Artifacts fairly so everyone gets equal treatment.
3) 3rd Consideration is the value of the Artifact

The Guild Master has the power of Veto over the Adventure Group's Artifact Distribution Vote, but will use it only in cases where the Guild Master comprehends that the determination of the Party is unsuitable for the particular Item (such as if they should give a Holy Sword to a Cleric who is sworn against using bladed weapons), at which point the vote must be recast by the Party.  If the vote is the same three times in a row, and the decision is non-lethal to the Party or Guild, then the decision will stand.   The Guild Master does not have Fiat Power to assign Artifacts that have been discovered by Adventure Groups, however, he does have Fiat Power for any Artifacts from the Hall Treasury that he may decide to distribute to a Party.  The essential goal for the distribution of Artifacts is that they be shared fairly within each group, and go to the best people to use them during the course of their Adventures.   Ultimately, the person who receives an Artifact through the process of Guild Mission Adventuring 'owns' the item, however, if he should perish in the course of his Adventures, it is expected that the Artifact will be returned to the Guild Hall, and redistributed fairly within the Group.

The Adventure Guild Protocols  are written in the Adventure Guild Charter, and are available to Guild Members upon request, though access to sections of the Guild Protocol may be limited based on Guild Ranking of the Individual.

Elthos ODS Rules: Skills & Kills: Calculating Experience Gains

I'm currently working on the Experience Gains section of the Elthos ODS rules with the help of my play testers.  The results have been to simplify the Experience Gains system considerably, and I believe that the math is now both easier to perform, and also the results align better with the Experience needed for Leveling in the ODS System.  Before continuing I should point out that the numbers are very small, and that is by design.  What follows is my current draft of the revised rules that will go into the Elthos ODS Rules Book:

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Skills & Kills: Calculating Experience Gains

When Characters successfully use Skills or Mystic Powers that they have learned, they gain Experience Points, however, the successful use of unlearned skills is considered pure luck, and does not earn experience Points, though the GM can override that rule if circumstances warrant. Calculating how many Experience Points are gained is easy. In the case of non-Combat skills is simply the value of the Difficulty Level of the task succeeded at (which is a value between 1 and 6 points). In the case of Combat Skills, Experience is earned when the opponent is killed, and is calculated by adding the specified stats of the all of the Vanquished Characters together as follows:

Total Vanquished Experience Gains = SUM(Character Level + Armor Class + Damage Absorption + Modified Dex Bonus + Strength Bonus + Wisdom Bonus)

Note: default Base Kill Gain Multiplier = 1 but can be adjusted to increase or decrease the rate of Levels advancement. The higher the BKGM the faster the Characters will gain Levels. The default of 1 seems to provide the best value for Campaigns where the expectation that Characters will advance to 6th Level (maximum in most cases) in approximately a year of play.

Example Experience Gain Calculations
Character: Tang (CL: 4, AC: 1, DAB: 1, MDB: 0, STB: 0, WSB: 0) is defeated by Gorgar, then the calculation is:  

XP = 1 x (4 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0) = 6 Experience Points

If a Character wins a Solo Combat, such that no other party members are in range to provide support, then the experience is not shared, and the value of the Experience Gain multiplied by 2. Otherwise, however, Combat Experience is shared with all of the members of the party equally.

Calculation for Learned non-Combat Skills
If a Character tries to perform a learned skill such as swimming across a fast moving river, which the GM has assigned a Difficulty Level of 5, then if he succeeds by rolling above the Chance to Succeed value, he accomplishes his goal and gains 5 Experience points.

Calculation for Special Cases
A special case might constitute any situation in which the normal amount of Experience Gain seems insufficient. For example, if the opponent in a combat situation is using magical weapons or armor, the GM might add a bonus Experience Point for each bonus value of the magical item. Conversely, if the Victor was using a magical weapon or armor the GM may wish to reduce the experience gained by an equivalent value.  The use of Mystical Powers earns Experience Points as does any other learned Skill or Combat Skill depending on the nature of the Mystic Power.

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To give you an idea of how these small numbers of Experience Gains relate to how much Experience is required for Character Leveling here is the Chart. You will note that the top value is the Experience Base for the Class, and it doubles for each level, which makes calculating the required amount reasonably simple. Remember that the idea of the Elthos "One Die System" is to keep the numbers small so that they are easy to handle during the game. The current configuration should allow Characters to get to Level 6, on average, in about 1 year of play if the GM runs the game once per week, more or less.  

	Fighter & Thief	SpellChanter & Cleric
Levels	20	30
1	0	0
2	20	30
3	40	60
4	80	120
5	160	240
6	320	480

Note that Multi-Classes combine the bases -10 / additional Class to so that a Fighter(20)-Thief (20) has a base of (20+20)-10=30, a SpellChanter(30)-Thief(20) has a base of (30+20)-10=40, and a Fighter(20)-SpellChanter(30)-Cleric(30) has a base of (20+30+30)-20=60.

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RPG Carnival: My BadAss RPG

First off, the Elthos Universe has got Mr. BadAss Bunny as it's Mascot, so that's hard to beat.

Second, I would say that the adventures that come out of Elthos are pretty badass as well.  I try to GM concepts that I think will surprise my players, and in some of the more recent cases the most badass thing they did was shrink down to the half the size of rice-grains in order to escape an enemy, riding on the backs of aphids.

It all started with chores.  I have my players as members of a large household of swine herders way out in the sticks, with lots of chores to do.  They are between the ages of 12 and 16, and don't know much beyond their farmstead.  They got involved, however, with a shadowy character that promised them huge wealth if they would plant certain black seeds on the first day of spring. Nope, they could not wait and planted them right away - wrong move!.  As soon as they did there was a tremor in the earth, and that got the adventure rolling.  They went to pay a visit to the local Monastery of the Golden Sheaf (sacred to Minvar, the Elkron of the Earth) so they could report the quake (but not mention the odd coincidence regarding the black seeds).   Along the way they met Old Biddy Mable, and managed to rescue a girl and her brothers from the lonely witch's magical snare.   The Abbess at the Monastary was kind and helpful, and all was well, until they got lost on their way home and wound up in the Black Forest.  There they met Lady Lucia who governed the Green Dragon Inn, and met some swindlers there, one of whom took a fancy to a Party member named Morgana.  Whoopsie, in the morning the Party woke up to find that Morgana was missing from her room.  They pursued up into the mountains where they found an old ruin occupied by a rather brutal gang of thugs, lead by a magician named Thurwulv.   There they were, cornered on the parapet of an ancient tower, having rescued Morgana, and in the process causing the death of her captor, Mr Montague (who happened to have sincerely fallen in love with the girl, who herself fell in love with him despite his crooked ways).  Trapped by Thurwulv and his men thursting for revenge, the Party escaped

Old Biddy Mable

with the help of Biddy Mable, who happen to be watching over them from afar.  She brought them into Weeleena's Tea House (an interdimensional tea house that fey like to visit).   To escape they climbed the Shrinking Stairs, and found themselves half the size of a grain of rice, and were escorted by two Princes of the Aphid people, upon whose backs they rode to discover the Aphid Temple inside a stone on the western parapet wall, and communed with the Holy Aphid there (an old man).  As it turns out the Insect Kingdom is ruled by a mysterious Insect King (whom they never saw, but had a big influence from afar). Despite having a King, however, the world of the Insects is fraught with faction and continuous warfare.   The Locust Ambassador arrived.  He was a large bulky half-man/half-Locust, redish in color, and plated with magical copper armor. He demanded that the Aphids support their claim to the King that the Ants stole their food and must deliver it, ALL of it, to the Locusts, or they would rise the Grand United Army and destroy all the green things of the valley.  This of course included the Player Character's home town.   They got busy.  First they decided to capture the Locust Ambassador (they were not big on diplomacy), and haul him in front of the towns folk so that they could see there was a real threat coming, and so help them to build a huge bonfire on Mount Zin in which they hoped to focus the Locust Swarm and destroy it.  The focusing would be done by praying to the appropriate Elkron at the right time to funnel the winds in such a way as to drive the Locusts into the blazing mountain grotto.   This plan was executed, the Red Locust Ambassador captured, with the help of Lady Isabella, a LadyBug Princess who took an interest in one of the Player Characters named Storm Wizard (aka, John Bellowick), and her body guard, Captain Ferdinando the Wasp Warrior.  Unfortunately, what they didn't know was that the ferocious and barely containable Red Locust Ambassador did not come alone.   His brother was nearby watching with a Squadron of Hypnotic Crimson Mosquito Fighters (think Air Force), and Water Bugs (think Artillery), not to mention the Silver Locust Ambassador who himself was another formidable opponent.  An epic war broke out between the Locust forces and those of the King, who had taken umbrage at the audacity of the Locusts and sent two Ant Armies to rectify the situation and capture the errant Locusts.   During the battle the tiny sized adventurer's found a tunnel under  rock that lead into a spider cave, which was actually the entrance to the Temple of the Spiders, and nearly got lost in the Illusions and trapped the 'Web of Lies' therein.

Nevertheless they escaped and as they fled on the back of a lady bug into the distance they watched the last moments of the battle from the air wherein the Locusts were finally captured by the Ants and their Wasp Warriors (the other Air Force). Needless to say, it was exciting.   And that is to leave out quite a bit of detail about how Juliette Bellowick died, and was able to rescue Pamela McFearson from Limbo, and managed herself to be seduced by the Dark Scorpion Prince of the Underworld, and escaping there arrived safely at the Monastery where the Abbess had performed many a life-summoning ritual.   By the end of the story (and leaving out lots of details) the Party made it safely home to their anxious father and ailing mother, and so ended that Chapter of the Campaign.  Oh, needless to say, the black seed that Juliette had planted in a flower pot grew into a peculiar and monsterous plant-man the size of her thumb which sprang out of a hairy black bulb on the top of the plant.  The bottom of the plant was a long stringy vine that overflowed down the side of the pot, down to the floor boards and vanished below the barn.  They tried cutting the vine but that, as it turned out, was not as easy to do as they had hoped.  The vine, as it happens, was what old mama Bellowick tripped on when she banged her head and fell ill, soon after the Bellowick children disappeared off into the sunset on their adventure.  Fortunately, when they finally got home, they were able to call upon the friends they made along the way to bring mom healing soup, and so everything turned out well.

Overall, it was pretty damn BadAss.  I wrote up the entire story in prose with all of the actual dialog and detail and maps on my Blog.  You can find the whole "Actual Play" Story write up in Chapters here, which is another BadAss expression of Elthos.   And then of course there was the incorporation along the way of the Elthos Tarot Deck, another bit of BadAssery that I created with the amazing artistic assistance of Jason Moser, by which Morgana foretold the Death of Mr Montague, though in the end it saddened her greatly.

Lastly, the final BadAss aspect of Elthos are the "One Die System" (ODS) Rules which is a Mini-System I created for the Literary Role Playing Game Society of Westchester so we could try out GMing ideas at the local pub where we have our meetings.   The Elthos ODS has turned out to be a pretty handy little system, that as it turns out is simple enough, yet complete enough, to run a reasonably light weight Traditionalist, non-Genre-Specific game.  It also has the virtue of being programmable due to is simple mechanics.  So I created one more BadAss thing - the Elthos ODS Web Application that runs all of the ODS Rules as a web based Application.  It allows GMs to create their own Worlds, roll and manage Characters, equip them, and maintain records of their adventures, doing all necessary calculations.   Basically a Gamesmaster's Toolbox, and World Weaver's Development Studio.

Ok, that is all the BadAss I have (except also for my Elthos Drawings!).   But gosh, that's enough already!  Sheesh!!

And finally, a warm and hearty "Thank You, kindly" to our RPG Carnival Host at Nevermet Press!

Elthos Website...

Well, making steady progress on the Website. While it's not really complete yet, and has a few place holders with blurbs rather than information, it does seem to be shaping up nicely.

I'm also going through the Elthos ODS Rules Book and weeding out extraneous stuff, and slimming it down even further. So that's coming along nicely. Soon...

On other fronts: I finished reading "Dogs in the Vineyard" and am not onto "Shadows of Yesterday". These are two Indie RPGs that have gained a lot of popularity in certain circles and so I want to see what all the hubbub is about. I really must say that in the case of DitV it's got a lot going for it. What I particularly like is the scenario development process. The way DitV establishes scenes along psychological and moral lines is intriguing. I am going to consider that methodology and try to genercise it for my game.

I've only just started with SoY so I'm not sure what I think of it yet. However, I did notice at least one thing of interest, in relation to recent discussions on Lessons in the LRPGSW. The Rules for regeneration of Character points is based on doing things WITH someone else (only). There is a reason for this, and I sense that the author has a "lesson to be learned" from that particular mechanic. Hmmm... interesting.

Well, back to work for me. :) Yay.