Talk:Mano a Mano

MaM 2007

Basic System

Damage and Health

Hit Points

We don't use hit points and hit point pools anymore

Total Damage

Total damage = lasting damage + stun damage

Health

Health = 1 + the character's two highest athletic ability modifiers. Health is the maximum total damage a character can take without being incapacitated and falling down

Toughness

Weapons no longer have toughness. The weapon breaking rules should be removed because we don't use them. Toughness is now the amount of damage a character can take without a damage penalty. It is always a fraction of health, but the size of that fraction can vary depending on the character and system variation used. Toughness is not a good name for this because having more toughess doesn't mean a character is more tough. For example in the blow by blow system toughness is health divided by speed. (In other words a character may have less toughness because their damage penalty comes in smaller increments, not because they can take less damage.)

Speed and Limbs

Template Speed

Speed is your maximum number of attacks per round. Typically, small creatures have more speed and large creatures have less. Speed is a little different from agility. Speed emphasizes strength and energy and agility emphasizes coordination and reflexes, but the main difference is that agility affects the success of actions while speed affects how fast actions can be executed in series.

Speed CP  Description     Examples                   Notes

  5   30  extremely fast  shrew, tasmanian devil
  4   15  very fast       cat, fighting cock, ninja
  3    5  fast            dog, trained fighter       cinematic human speed
  2    0  medium          horse, normal person       realistic human speed
  1   -5  slow            python, elephant, turtle   quick actions only
  0  -15  very slow       tortoise, sloth            very slow movement
 -1  -30  extremely slow  plant, snail               imperceptible movement

Secondary Natural Weapons

Having more than one natural weapon allows a creature with at least 1 speed to attack more often. (This is different from having more speed because it does not allow a creature with only 1 speed to do powerful actions.) If a creature cannot use it's natural weapons quickly, they may count as a single natural weapon. For example, an Elephant has both tusks and a trunk that can be used as weapons, but the elephant cannot use them as separate weapons in a combo attack.

Hand Weapons

Hand-like appendages can be used to wield weapons. A character with at least two weapon hands can do a secondary attack with a hand weapon - as long as the character has a weapon in each hand.

Fast Characters

Characters may be able to get extra speed from extraordinary athletic ability or fighting skills. Their speed would increase by 1 for every 5 ability levels.

Slow Characters

The slow disability reduces a character's speed by 1 for each level, and can never be greater than the template's speed. Slow disability is worth 5 times the CP of a basic disability (5, 15, 30 and 50 CP for slow level -1, -2, -3 and -4 respectively.) Slow disability level -4 always reduces a character's speed to 0.

There is a possible cheat here. A quadriplegic tasmanian devil with a speed of 5 and slow disability -4 has a net speed of 0 and 20 bonus character points, while a tortoise with a natural speed of 0 only has 15 bonus character points. On the other hand, it is possible that the tortoise could become a ninja tortoise and increase his speed by developing 5 or 10 levels of some ability, while the paralyzed marsupial is cursed with a maximum speed of 0 regardless. (That's why slow level 4 always reduces speed to 0.)

Maimed Characters

A character who has lost (or never had) the use of a limb may be effectively slower because of not having secondary natural or hand weapon attacks.

Encumbrance

Encumbrance reduces speed and movement instead of affecting combat rolls. Carrying capacity (CC) and maximum lifting ability may be based on arm strength (AS) which is four times power plus strength. (For example CC might be 10 times the mass of the heaviest weapon you can wield easily and your maximum lift might be 10 times CC.) See arm strength in the weapons section below.

Size

Power

Power works the same as before, but the scale is different. Creatures of roughly human size and power have 2 power. The power of significantly smaller or weaker creatures goes down by half levels. The power of much bigger and stronger creatures goes up by whole levels. The CP scale is based on 2 times ability CP.

Power   0   0.5   1  1.5   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10
 CP    -20  -12  -6   -2   0   2   6  12  20  30  42  56  72 

Health

The average health modifier for a given size is four times the average power modifier for that size, minus eight. The CP scale is a flat rate of 2 CP per health point. A small bug template might have a health modifier of -8 (-16 CP) while a 30 ton Brachiosaurus template might have a health modifier of +20 (40 CP)

Agility

Agility will still be roughly based on size (with the obvious exception of templates that are awkward or slow moving for their size) Agility would be on a 0-8 scale with humans in the middle (4 Agi) and the CP would be 2 times ability CP:

Agi    0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8
CP   -20 -12  -6  -2   0   2   6  12  20

Combined size table

The following guidelines should help template creation. These are only guidelines - some creatures will be stronger or weaker than their mass would suggest.

 CP Health Agi Pwr Weapon*    CC**     Mass      Examples

-16   -8    8   0     3 g    10 g     < 10 g     hummingbird, small bug
-12   -6    7  0.5   10 g   100 g    10-999 g    rat, mouse, largest insects
 -8   -4    6   1    30 g     1 kg    1-9 kg     cat, fox, rabbit
 -1   -2    5  1.5  100 g     3 kg   10-39 kg    dog, coyote
  0    0    4   2   300 g    10 kg   40-199 kg   human, deer, wolf
 13    8    3   4     3 kg   30 kg  200-999 kg   cow, lion, horse, bear, moose
 46   16    2   6    30 kg  100 kg    1-9 tons   giraffe, hippo, rhino, elephant
 58   24    1   8   300 kg   1 ton   10-99 tons  largest dinosaurs
116   32    0  10   3 tons  10 tons  > 100 tons  largest whales

* Mass of the smallest hand weapon with more power than the template
** Minimum equipment mass that gives an encumbrance penalty

Armor

Damage absorption is now part of natural armor. The CP of natural armor is based on absorption (using the ability CP scale) multiplied by the cover. A character can have more than one kind of natural armor covering different areas, but not overlapping. The total cover of a character's natural armor areas cannot be more than 5. If the total cover is 5 then the (weakest part of the) armor has unlimited cover. You could imagine that a character has 5 areas to protect: vital areas, main targets, secondary targets, minor targets, and weak points. Or you could look at each point of cover as 20%.

Cvr  Name             Description

 1   limited armor    protects a specific area of the body like a shield
 2   partial armor    more area(s) covered but les than 50%
 3   extensive armor  at least 50% cover like a shell or carapace
 4   fully armored    covers the whole body but has weak points
 5   tough hide       full cover without weak points

Abs   CP*   Examples

 1     1    thick hide, scales or guard hairs, light exoskeleton
 2     3    big scales, small bones in skin, modest exoskeleton 
 3     6    large bony scutes, strong exoskeleton, light shell
4-5  10-15  carapace, bony sheild, heavy exoskeleton, hard shell  
6-9  21-45  unbreakable shell, probably quite heavy
10+   55+   harder than armor found in nature

* multiplied by cover

Weapons

Agility

Weapons no longer have an agility modifier. Instead they reduce your action options if you do not have enough power and strength.

Arm Strength and Unwieldy Weapons

Arm strength (AS) is a character's power multiplied by four, then added to their strength. Use this total and the following table to find the mass of the biggest weapons the character can wield easily. Any weapons larger than this are unwieldy. If the weapon is unwieldy, it may only be used to do one quick action per turn. A weapon that large may increase your encumbrance penalty too, reducing your speed and movement.

AS mass 0 0 g 1 1 g 2 3 g 3 10 g 4 25 g 5 50 g 6 100 g 7 200 g

AS mass 8 300 g 9 400 g 10 500 g 11 700 g 12 1000 g 13 1500 g 14 2000 g 15 2500 g

AS mass 16 3 kg 17 4 kg 18 5 kg 19 7 kg 20 10 kg 21 15 kg 22 20 kg 23 25 kg

AS mass 24 30 kg 25 40 kg 26 50 kg 27 70 kg 28 100 kg 29 150 kg 30 200 kg 31 250 kg

AS mass 32 300 kg 33 400 kg 34 500 kg 35 700 kg 36 1000 kg 37 1500 kg 38 2000 kg 39 2500 kg

AS mass 40 3 tons 41 4 tons 42 5 tons 43 7 tons 44 10 tons 45 15 tons 46 20 tons 47 25 tons

AS mass 48 30 tons 49 40 tons 50 50 tons 51 70 tons 52 100 tons 53 150 tons 54 200 tons 55 250 tons

Weapon Power, Stun and Lasting Damage

Weapon damage is still based on it's power and sharpness. Power is closely related to the power and strength requirements, and power should vary more for larger templates. A good rule of thumb might be that a weapon's power should be approximately one-fourth of the arm strength (AS) required to wield it easily.

Sharpness

Sharpness = lasting damage/total damage. In MaM 2006 this could be represented by a negative number because each -1 was like reducing the sharpness by a percentage. In MaM 2007 that won't work because 1 point of damage will be more significant for smaller creatures and much less significant for larger creatures.

How should damage be expressed?

• power = 2, sharpness = 1/2
• power = 2, lasting damage = 1
• lasting damage = 1, stun = 1

When is absorption taken out of damage? In the old days when we had sharpness fractions, sharpness was used to calculate lasting damage from total damage after absorption. This required a quick division calculation for every successful damaging attack. Now that absorption is relatively smaller, perhaps we can calculate lasting damage before absorption, or do away with the fractions completely.

Turns and Actions

Do large characters with lots of health need to recover stun more quickly than one point per turn?

Thrown Weapons

Do we need rules for Throwing Power, Maximum Range, Ability-Based Distance or Slings and Spear Throwers like the rules at Mano_a_Mano:Thrown_Weapons?

Modifiers

To simplify keeping track of success roll modifiers, there are only 10 different actions and positions to be aware of. A character can only be in one of these positions at a time. For example, a character cannot do a flanking attack while aiming or grappling.

Standing

This is the normal position with no modifiers.

On the Ground

While a character is on the ground, they move more slowly (half movement, -1 to all hand to hand combat rolls except for grappling) but they are harder to hit with missile weapons (+2 to avoid a missile weapon, even without cover, unless the attack comes from above.)

Aiming while Standing

When a character aims a missile weapon they have a +2 to hit.

Aiming on the Ground

When a character aims from a sitting or prone position they have a +2 to hit plus the penalties for being on the ground: they move more slowly (half movement, -1 to all hand to hand combat rolls except for grappling) but they are harder to hit with missile weapons (+2 to avoid a missile weapon, even without cover, unless the attack comes from above.)

Aimed Attack and Flanking Attack

These attacks have a +1 modifier to their success roll.

Evasion and Defense

Evasion and Defense give a character a +2 passive defense bonus until the end of the character's next turn. This bonus helps them to avoid any attack which they don't counter and which is not a counter to their attack.

Clinch

When a character is grappling and standing up, but does not have the dominant position, they have a -1 to all combat rolls.

Ground Fighting

When a character is grappling on the ground, and does not have the dominant position, they have a -1 to all combat rolls against characters they are grappling with, a +1 against other characters missile weapon attacks, and -2 to combat rolls involving other characters.

Dominant Position (Standing)

+1 modifier to combat rolls against the character in the inferior position. -1 to all other combat rolls.

Dominant Position (on the Ground)

+1 modifier to combat rolls against the character in the inferior position. -1 to combat rolls involving other characters you are grappling with simultaneously, +1 against other characters missile weapon attacks, and -2 to most other combat rolls.

                 STANDING         ON THE GROUND

DEFAULT          no modifiers     +2 defense vs. missiles
                                  -1 hand to hand

AIMING           +2 to hit        +2 to hit
                                  +2 defense vs. missiles
                                  -1 hand to hand

AIMED/FLANKING   +1 to hit        n/a

EVADE/DEFEND     +2 defense       n/a

GRAPPLING        -1 to all rolls  -1 vs. other grapplers
                                  -2 vs. non-grapplers
                                  +1 defense vs. missiles

DOMINANT         +1 vs. inferior  +1 vs. inferior
                 -1 vs. others    -1 vs. other grapplers
                                  -2 vs. non-grapplers
                                  +1 defense vs. missiles

Character Sheet

Name _________________________ Age ______ Sex ______Template _________________
Occupation(s) ____________________________________________ Template CP (_____)
Length/Height:  1.5 M  Reach _____ Movement ____ Speed ____ Ability CP (_____)
Mass _______ Equipment Mass _______ Encumbrance ____          Other CP (_____)
Power ___  Health _____   Toughness _____  Agi ______         Total CP (_____)
ABILITIES/disabilities  Mod Lvl  (CP)                           Mod Lvl  (CP)
_______________________ ___ ___ (____)  _______________________ ___ ___ (____)
_______________________ ___ ___ (____)  _______________________ ___ ___ (____)
_______________________ ___ ___ (____)  _______________________ ___ ___ (____)
_______________________ ___ ___ (____)  _______________________ ___ ___ (____)
_______________________ ___ ___ (____)  _______________________ ___ ___ (____)
_______________________ ___ ___ (____)  _______________________ ___ ___ (____)
_______________________ ___ ___ (____)  _______________________ ___ ___ (____)
_______________________ ___ ___ (____)  _______________________ ___ ___ (____)
EQUIPMENT(item name & special mod.)   Qty Mass Abs Cvr Cmb SR  PR  Pwr Shp Rch
_____________________________________ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
_____________________________________ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
_____________________________________ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
_____________________________________ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
_____________________________________ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
_____________________________________ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
_____________________________________ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
_____________________________________ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
                 Stun                 |              Damage                     
                                      | 
                                      |
                                      |
                                      |
                                      |

Blow by Blow System

This system allows more detail, flexibility and improvisation in combat.

Toughness

Toughness = health / speed (rounded up.)

Damage Penalty

Damage penalty = total damage / toughness (rounded down.)

Actions

Actions = Speed - Damage Penalty. Quick actions count as one action. Powerful actions use more energy and count as two actions. Some actions take more time, keeping you busy for one or more rounds. Speed does not help with those actions. Characters get an extra action when they use a secondary weapon. (They cannot move with this action or use it to perform a powerful action.) A character with 1 speed can do a powerful action that counts as one action if their total damage is less than half of their health, but they cannot use a powerful action and a secondary weapon during the same round.

Movement

Characters can move before each action. A characters stride, swimming, flying and reach is the distance they can move with each action. Optional Rule - Sprinting: Each time a character uses more than half their movement with any action, they take one point of stun damage. (This should be reconsidered in light of the new health/damage scale)

Aimed and Flanking Attacks

flanking attacks and aimed hand to hand attacks are avoided in favor of two normal attacks.

Action, Formation, Interfering and Covering

A character may have several chances to use their actions between the end of one turn and the end of their next turn, so the character's turn is the last chance to use the actions the character hasn't already used moving in formation or interfering with other characters' actions.

1. At the beginning of an action the character whose turn it is, and any characters moving in formation with that character, can perform one action each. Formation actions have to be planned before the turn begins.
2. If they do not perform an action, the turn ends. Otherwise, the opposition has a chance to interfere with them by performing one action each. Interfering is an opportunity, not an invitation: The game doesn't stop so everyone can be asked if they would like to interfere.
3. Then, any characters who have not performed an action but are providing cover for the character whose turn it is or the characters moving in formation can perform one action to interfere with the opposition. Characters interfering with interfering actions should announce their general intent in advance - "I'm covering Jimmy" - but don't have to choose a specific action or target until the opposition has chosen their interfering actions.

Traditional Pools

This is a system for tracking damage and actions that superficially resembles MaM 2006:

Health counters are shared between stun and lasting damage and one health pool for each action. Action counters are shared between ready, used and hurt (damage penalty) pools, with two single-counter pools for a (ready) secondary weapon attack and (used) defense action.

 Damage                Health (by actions)             Actions
 __________ __________ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____   _________ _________ _________ 
|  Lasting |   Stun   |  1  |  2  |  3  |  4  |  5  | |  Ready  |  Used   |  Hurt   |
|          |          |     |     |     |     |     | |         |         |         |
|          |          |     |     |     |     |     | |_________|_________|_________|
|          |          |     |     |     |     |     | |   |2nd  |   |Extra
|__________|__________|_____|_____|_____|_____|_____| |___|Wpn. |___|Defense

Characters begin by filling one health pool for each action with their toughness in health counters or the remainder of their health counters if it is less than toughness. (The remainder should go in the first health pool.) Characters place their action counters in the ready pool - plus an extra action counter in their secondary weapon pool if they have any secondary weapons.

Branches and Leaves

This system for tracking movement and actions removes the need for one counter per action.

Actions are represented by a slider and health pools are arranged in rows perpendicular to the action slider. Health pools are emptied top to bottom. Once a row is emptied, the action next to that row is "hurt" and the slider can't move back there. The last space in the action slider cannot be used unless the character uses a secondary weapon. A separate "toggle" counter keeps track of whether extra defense has been used. It is left on "Y" when the character plans to use it automatically and left on "N" when the character doesn't plan to use it.

Actions     Health
   __  ________________ 
5 |__||________________|
4 |__||________________|
3 |__||________________|
2 |__||________________|
1 |__||________________|
0 |__|
  |__|<--Secondary Weapon
               __    __
Extra Defense |__|Y |__|N
 __________  __________ 
|          ||          |
|  Lasting ||   Stun   |
|  Damage  ||  Damage  |
|__________||__________|

Calendar

This system for tracking movement and actions only requires four counters:

Similar to branches and leaves except that there are no stun and lasting damage pools, there are only two damage counters and their position in the health area indicates your lasting damage and total damage. There are two extra spaces in the health table for the damage counters to "drain into". The width of the rows is the character's toughness. The player may need to shade in columns of the health table to indicate his character's Toughness

Actions      Health
   __   __ __ __ __ __ __ 
5 |__|-|__|__|__|__|__|__|
4 |__|-|__|__|__|__|__|__|
3 |__|-|__|__|__|__|__|__|
2 |__|-|__|__|__|__|__|__|
1 |__|-|__|__|__|__|__|__|
0 |__| |__|__|
  |__|<--Secondary Weapon
               __    __
Extra Defense |__|Y |__|N

Racetrack

Similar to calendar except the health rows are connected end-to-end and are parallel to a horizontal action slider instead of perpendicular to a vertical action slider. You could shade in the spaces to indicate your character's toughness and actions or you could draw a special racetrack to fit your character. The following generic example has lots of actions for fast characters and lots of toughness for healthy characters, but normal creatures would not use the full capacity of both (which would mean having 30 health.)

                ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___________ ___
Health  ___ ___|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|
Action |___|___|___________|___________|___________|___________|___________|
        2nd  0       1           2 __    __  3           4           5
        Wpn.        Extra Defense |__|Y |__|N

Hack and Slash Real-Time Role-Playing System (Hack and Slash RPS)

The Hack & Slash RPS is a variation of Mano a Mano for "button-mashing" computer and video games where each individual action is affected by input (like fighting games and shooting games.) The normal Mano a Mano rules may be more suited for a real-time strategy or role-playing game. Unless otherwise noted, characters can move and perform actions at any time if it doesn't interrupt their current action. Movement does not have to be connected to actions, which might result in halting, irregular movement that feels less responsive. Details such as the effect of encumbrance and damage penalty on speed and movement can be ignored if they don't fit the game design or difficulty level.

Characters

Target

The target of the character's current action. The game may allow characters to have other targets or choose a next target during the current action. The Hack & Slash RPS is only concerned with the target the character intended (or most likely intended) to hit when they started their current action.

Action

The character's current action

Action Time

The time the current action started

Ignore List

A list of characters who have failed to interrupt the current action

Chance to Interrupt

Each action only gets one chance to interrupt another action. The current action may have already used it's chance and not be able to interrupt anymore.

Half Success

Whether the character's current action is limited to half success because an effort to interrupt it was half successful

Actions

Interruptible Period

After this time the action cannot be interrupted.

Effect Time

When the action's effect takes place. Effect Time is usually the end of the interruptible period. (Any animation after the effect time is usually follow-through animation.)

Duration

The duration of an action is the period from the beginning of the action until another action can be performed. The duration of a character's quickest attack is one round (two seconds) divided by the character's speed, and conversely a character's speed is one round (two seconds) divided by the duration of the character's quickest attack. Speed can be used to design the character's animation, or the animation can be used to determine the character's speed.

Interfering

Actions that overlap in time can interfere with each other. An action can be interrupted any time between it's beginning and it's effect time. Each action can only be used to attempt one interruption. A half-successful interruption limits the action's maximum success to half success. A half-successful interruption of an action that is already limited to half success has no effect.

When your action's effect time comes up, do the following for your target and all characters targeting you if the current time is within both their action's interruptible period and your action's interruptible period and either your action or their action can interrupt:

1. determine success (with a roll or pre-rolled totals for example)
2. if your action is successful and it can interrupt, your target's action is interrupted
3. if their action is successful and it can interrupt, your action is interrupted
4. if the result is half-success and your action can interrupt, your target's success is limited to half success
5. if the result is half-success if their action can interrupt, your action's success is limited to half success
6. their action can no longer interrupt
7. your action can no longer interrupt

Damage Penalty

A character can be healthy, incapacitated or have a degree of damage penalty. Each degree of damage penalty has a minimum ratio of total damage to health. In the basic Mano a Mano rules there is one degree of damage penalty which requires that a character's total damage is at least half of their health. In the blow by blow system the number of degrees and damage/health ratios depend on how much speed a character has. The effects of damage penalty should be similar to the Mano a Mano basic system: reduced speed, power and movement.

• slower actions - use longer attack animations or have the character stagger or cower between actions
• less powerful actions - powerful attacks are replaced by less powerful attacks
• reduced movement - the character moves at a slower speed, does not jump or swim as well, etc.
• inferior techniques - the types of grappling and defensive actions performed might change to less effective versions

If you don't have animation to reflect the degrees of damage penalty, a modifier can be subtracted from combat rolls so fewer actions succeed or attack power can be reduced by a fraction.

Success Rolls

Optionally, player skill may be used instead of success rolls. Players should not be able to spend CP on abilities that are not useful. Those abilities can be removed, ignored or determined automatically. For example, if archery depends entirely on player aim, then archery ability has no CP value. On the other hand archery has some CP value if:

• archery depends entirely on a success roll
• if you fail the roll the arrow doesn't shoot straight
• player aim determines whether you hit while the roll is still used for armor
• accuracy is affected by combat bonuses without success rolls

Even in River City Ransom success rolls are not 100% replaced by player skill, no? Also, I wonder how strongly this would divorce Hack and Slash from the mainstream "Blizzard-style" RPGs...

This is an optional rule for using H&S RPS in a less mainstream RPG design (like Hexen II or The Legend of Zelda which do not have random missing.)

Virtues of Different Systems

What constitutes a positive virtue of an RPG system depends on the environment in which MaM is used:

Type of Game:	Paper & Pencil RPG / Turn-Based Computer RPG	Board Game / miniature-or-action-figure based RPG / Computer Strategy Game	Action Computer Game
Basic Approach:	uses verbal narrative or description (or pictures in a computer RPG)	uses strategic modeling	used multimedia presentation and mechanized simulation
Simplicity:	less important than in a board game	very important to playability	not an issue (unlimited memory and calculations)
Completeness:	complete and flexible rules are important	less detail is okay	not as important as in an RPG
Actions per Round:	multiple actions add flexibility	one action per round is better	actions not grouped into rounds
Game Master	GM dependency (or computer GM) is OK	GM dependency is bad	the computer is the GM
Player Knowledge	players should not need to know each other's stats	players referee each other - so they need to see each other's character sheets (except in a computer strategy game)	players should not need to see each other's character sheets
Combat Map Dependency	bad (except in a computer RPG where it is OK)	fine	fine (in-game maps)

Damage and Stun

Normal "lasting" damage and stun both represent a variety of things which can hinder or incapacitate a character. In real life the effects of injuries can last a few seconds, recover in minutes, heal in a few weeks or last a lifetime. Some effects are independent while others accumulate, adding to the effects of other injuries.

Separate Stun and Damage

The two types of damage would be separate, and your damage penalty would be based on whichever is greater. This might be simpler than keeping track of stun and damage separately (depending on how health, lasting damage and stun are tracked.)

Independent, Non-accumulating Damage or Stun

Instead of - or in addition to - accumulating damage points, if the damage of an individual attack (possibly increased or multiplied by some factor) is greater than some threshold (health? toughness?) the character's condition worsens (incapacitated or goes through damage penalty stages)

The most realistic system might be to have independent AND accumulating effects of BOTH damage types (stun and lasting damage) but that would be too complex. A compromise might be to have stun accumulate while the effect of each lasting damage injury is independent. In other words a character could be hindered or incapacitated two ways: (A) by a sufficient amount of accumulated damage in a short time or (B) by distinct injuries with deadly weapons which increase damage penalty or incapacitate but don't add to the accumulated damage.

Seperate Optional Rules Section

I am thinking that "optional rules" should have their/its own section at the end of MaM. This way it will be easy to grasp the basic system without having to consider possible optional rules. Also, advanced players interested in optional rules will be able to find them without having to sift through the entire system.

Keeping optional rules close to default rules makes it easy to update optional rules when default rules change. It reduces the amount of cross-referencing needed. It encourages a selective approach to optional rules. It also makes optional rules easier to use so we can have a range of options from simple to advanced rather than hiding them away for advanced users only. This also means our default rules can be very basic, because popular but not essential rules are right where they need to be.

But we do want the basic system to be easy to grasp without having to consider possible optional rules, and less importantly, it is nice if advanced players can find optional rules quickly. Visually seperating optional rules from default rules without removing them from the context allows the reader to decide how much attention they want to give to optional rules. It also makes them easy for advanced readers to spot. Also if the optional rules are seperate wiki pages, we can easily create an appendix summarizing the optional rules if we want. Here is just one example of how they could be visually separated:

Optional Rule Mounted Combat When the Animal Attacks When riding an animal, the animal will fight automatically if it is trained to do so. Every time the animal attacks or defends, the rider must make a roll using their riding ability to stay mounted. The difficulty of this roll is 10. Stopping the Attack To keep the animal from attacking the rider must make an animal handling success roll every time the animal is attacked, and every round that the animal's attacker is visible. The difficulty of this roll is 10 if the animal is unhurt, or 15 if the animal has stun or damage. Animals that do not Fight Animals trained to be ridden but not to fight will not attack if they are being ridden. Instead, they will try to run unless the rider makes a successful animal handling roll. This has a difficulty of 15 if the animal is unhurt, or 20 if the animal has stun or damage. Charging Instead of having the animal attack, a rider may use the animal's speed to do a charging attack. (See Action/Attacking.) Vehicles Vehicle combat is similar to mounted combat, but most vehicles will not fight or try to run from an enemy. Ramming When a driver rams a target, their driving ability modifier or the vehicle's agility - whichever is lower - is used as the attack modifier. A successful ramming attack results in an automatically successful ramming counterattack by the target against the part of the vehicle used to ram (usually the front.) Head-on and Broadside Collisions If the vehicle and target are moving in different directions (or if only the vehicle is moving) the extra charging damage caused by the speed of both the vehicle and the target is added to the damage taken by both. Rear-end and Sideswipe Collisions If the vehicle and target are moving in the same direction then the charging damage is based on the difference in the distances the vehicle and target moved in that direction since the beginning of their last turn.

I must admit I'm much more concerned that the extra rules will add to the learning curve, than I am about some need of an advanced player. (Of course specific pritings can include and exclude whatever rules they like under the liscense.) For the purposes of this site, this suggested option might be best.--BFGalbraith 2005.12.07

Special Armor Bonuses

Weapons have special bonuses based on their design. Some help you parry, others are used for grappling, and some help you hit by reaching around defenses. Armor can also be designed to have special advantages and we can reflect this with similar special bonuses:

• Padded and ablative armor (bicycle helmet) absorb more blunt trauma, explosions, etc.
• Tough, flexible armor (leather, chainmail) resists cutting (including some stabbing weapons)
• Hard/smooth/angled/springy/stretchy armor deflects peircing attacks

The ideal armor would combine kevlar (springy/stretchy/smooth with ablative padding) and chainmail (tough against cutting.) This would be reflected as a very high absorption bonus. This composite of clay and metal would be ultra-heavy, so in practise some types of armor are more specialized:

• ("Blu") extra absorption against Blunt/Bludgeoning weapons - padding, clay, foam
• ("Cut") extra absorption against Cutting (not impaling) weapons - chainmail, leather
• ("Imp") extra absorption against Impaling weapons - lamellar? kevlar (no clay backing)
• ("B/C") extra absorption against Blunt and Cutting weapons
• ("B/I") extra absorption against Blunt and Impaling weapons - kevlar (with backing)
• ("C/I") extra absorption against Cutting and Impaling weapons

Weapons with low sharpness are usually blunt/bludgeoning weapons. Weapons with high sharpness are usually cutting weapons - even if they are mainly used for stabbing. To qualify as an impaling weapon, the weapon must be specially designed with a long narrow tip. Natural weapons are often impaling weapons so they can penetrate vital organs even through bone.

(Note: if you use kevlar without the backing it still gives you an absorption bonus against impaling weapons - including bullets - but you don't get the regular absorption bonus, so it's only going to deflect the lightest grazing hits.)

Disabilities & Using Abilities During Combat

Seriously guys. Don't allow players to take disabilities for negative CP. In fact make them pay double CP for disabilities if they want to be crippled and lame and blind and deaf and missing pretty much all their limbs and sensory organs because thats pretty much what they want anyway. Players who take disabilities can bite me.

Its pretty much an established fact that lawyers can just like see waves of sound bouncing off of your face. But at what cost? What cost indeed. If you use an ability to compensate for a disability it should require the minimum effort of 1 hitpoint per round. For example -- a blind person may use a cane to collect sensory data.

At times a GM might ask players to perform an ability check during a round of combat. My opinion is that players should not add their ability bonus to the check unless they specifically have established that they are using the ability. If the check is called before the player's turn and the player stated the use of the ability before the beginning of combat. The player would be allowed to add their ability bonus. If the check is called after the player's turn then the player would not be allowed to add their ability bonus the unless they specifically spent at least 1 hit point to use the ability.

--ulrich 11:00, 2005 Jul 2 (CEST)

LOL! - A blind person might also use a cane to fight evil - which will take more than 1 hit point per round :-). Seriously, placing limits on disabilities is essential to good gaming. A good rule would be that a character should not have more than one disability unless (A) she has a sucking character template (and then those should be her only disabilities) or (B) GM's permission (or allowed by the specific game.) Another good rule (especially if you have lots of small quirky disadvantages in the game) is to allow no more than 10 (or fewer) points of disadvantages. (This is one of those optional rules so important it should not just be in an appendix.)

I'm not sure I understand everything you are trying to say about ability checks, but we do need a rule for arbitrary actions during combat, to avoid the whole "while I fight these guys, I'm searching for traps, and burying bodies" problem.--SerpLord 15:17, 8 December 2005 (CET)

Fix Cross-References

Cross references like "(See Abilities/Skills.)" need to be hyperlinked to appropriate sections. Other text can also be hyperlinked. The only cross references that should be in (See ...) format are ones that are more helpful than distracting when you read the printed rules.

New Structure for Linear Reading

Areas that (probably) need attention:

• front and back covers, title page.
• how to create a book version
• floating tables (messy when opened in OpenOffice.org)
• (See Chapter/Section.) references
• Complete System
• Game Design
  • Adventures (basic definition of an Adventure/Scenario/Campaign/Sourcebook and what goes in it.)
  • Supplies (paper, pencil, hex mats, blank forms for templates, occupations, ability and equipment lists)
  • Templates
    • (emphasize designing templates)
    • Make a Template (follow the template structure and order more closely: dimensions, abilities, armor, limbs, weapons, CP)
  • Occupations
    • Requirements (abilities, training, social class, etc.)
    • Perquisites (equipment, income, social status, etc.)
    • other limitations (minimum/maximum number of occupations, starting occupations) part of Requirements?
  • Abilities
    • Availability (some abilities are limited to certain templates)
  • Equipment (explain how to design equipment - this is not about CP!)
• Character Creation
  • placement of missing limbs information and CP
  • placement of build information and CP
  • Occupations?
  • Character Equipment
  • Make a Character - Character Generation Example (review for consistency)
• Character Development
  • Developing Abilities through Training and Experience
  • Changing Occupations
  • Inventory Management or Acquiring and Losing Equipment (see Character Equipment)
  • Making Equipment
    • Equipment CP (see Armor and Weapon CP in the Template CP rules)
    • Make an Item - Equipment Generation Example

Things BFGalbraith noticed

When I was working on the How-To-Play adventure for www.SquawkRPG.net , I found that following things probably need to be included in Mano a Mano IMHO:

Rules for varying Height and Reach for individual characters (perhaps something as simple as +1 or -1 CP for an extra 1/2 meter, with no such option for zero-reach characters?)

Character templates have minimum and maximum heights, if you are outside that range, the template does not describe you. A full 50cm reach difference seems like it would also mean you are mutated beyond your template. We should consider (at least for future editions of MaM) templates that don't allow build variation (mecha) and and templates that allow extraordinary variation (mutants.)

If we look at a sufficiently large template (an 18 meter giant for example) a 0.5 meter reach difference is only like a 5 cm difference for a human. 1 CP per 0.5 m might work. We can set the minimum for all templates at 0 (could reflect disability or damage) but how do we set maximums? The easiest solution is to only allow it if the GM approves and/or assume that templates reflect the upper limit of the race's reach. The complicated solution is to add a new number to the template (especially complicated because now templates present options with multiple CP values instead of a fixed package of features.) --SerpLord 14:38, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

An explaination of "Kick" (from what I understand it's supposed to be like "pull" but you spend the hit points after firing the weapon instead of before...)

your guess is as good as mine :-) --SerpLord 14:38, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

An example of how to calculate the CP of the max range of a weapon (so a decent archery example... the correct answer is "you DON'T caculate CP of the max range of a weapon," but an example of how to caculate max range is needed.) In other words, we need a clear example of pull.

The reach of a ranged weapon is it's effective range. The CP of reach is 1 CP for each 0.5 m, or 2 CP/m According to Wikipedia, an AK-47 has an effective range of 300-450 m. Depending on whether you take the high or low estimate, that's 600-900 CP. (Imagine that we are fighting on an open plain and you have an AK-47 and I have a knife. I can move a few meters every time you get a shot off, so you'll get a dozen chances to shoot me before I reach you. It's potentially like a guy with a knife fighting 20 guys with spears.)

One nice thing about MaM is that it has been created by people who have really shot bows bows and firearms, have had their arms twisted into submission, been choked out, knocked out, slowly beaten down, been cut by knives, have done full-contact stick fighting, etc. :) I think you are forgetting "kick" in the above CP formula. Kick is Pull for fire arms, and the difference is that you spend the hit points as you pull the trigger, instead of before you pull the trigger. Body-power subtracts from kick before you spend the HP (parrelled to how it effects pull.) So for a 400 meter range weapon, with a kick of 4, the actual "reach" listed on the character sheet would be 100, and the total range would be 400m (4HPx100m.) In that case the reach of the AK would be worth 50 CP, and that would be about right IMHO. (And THAT's why we need an example of Kick in the rules.) -BFGalbraith, Sept. 12, 2006

The relationship between pull and range is complex, but here's a rough formula: 120 m + (20 m for each +1 pull), but no less than 20m. --SerpLord 14:38, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

I couldn't find any equipment mass calculation rules (they were probably removed when we were attempting "fuzzy size",) which is pretty important in the case of generating Armor.

Armor is way more important (players expect characters to be slowed down by heavy armor.) There are 3 main factors involved in Armor: Cover, Absorption, and Toughness. I would think that for primitive technologies, the mass of this would be something like "(Cover + Absorption + Toughness) times 20% of Carying Capacity = armor mass," and that for advanced technologies it might be something like "(Cover + Absorption + Toughness) times 10% of Carying Capacity = armor mass."

Here's an empirical approach: For midieval armor divide the mass by the cover bonus and get a "mass per Cvr" value. Then we can divide that by the weight of a large man (100 kg) and get an estimate of the weight per cover for any species (based on that species' upper weight limit.) Modern high-tech armor may be 1% better, and some vital areas of the body require less material to cover and still give a +1 bonus. (For example a titanium chest plate that covers my heart could have +1 cover and +5 absorption, but only weigh 2 or 3 kg.)

Armor Type  mass/Cvr  Abs  Tgh
Padded       1% /Cvr   1    2
Leather      2% /Cvr   2    3
Scale        4% /Cvr   3    3
Chainmail    3% /Cvr   3    3
Brigandine   5% /Cvr   4    3
Lamellar     4% /Cvr   4    4
Plate        5% /Cvr   5    4

The "ideal" formula for the armor's mass is the wearer's mass times the cover and absorption of the armor, divided by 100. Padded, Leather, Chainmail, Lamellar and Plate approach this ideal. Scale and Brigandine are a little less efficient, but they are inexpensive and just as useful in many situations. Toughness is more an economics issue (how much do I want to invest in this much armor?) --SerpLord 14:38, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

We might not want hard and fast rules for weapons, but we might give a "general guidline" of five levels less than it's power bonus.

If the weapon is mace-like (maximum power, minimum mass) then it could be a whole size level lighter. If the weapon is fist-like (minimum power, maximum mass) it could be a size level heavier. In other words a 1 kg mace has at least as much impact as a 3 kg sword. There is also variation within families of weapons. A sword with a +3 power bonus is not balanced the same as a sword with a +2 power bonus. --SerpLord 14:38, 11 September 2006 (PDT)

Boiler Plate for MaM "Design"

Some adventures are a sequence of challenges like an obstacle course. However, players often want to be able to try anything they want with their characters, so an engaging environment for the characters to freely adventure in - letting the story develop naturally - is usually better than forcing players to follow a story line.

For example, if the PCs are likely to end up fighting in a village market, the GM should have a village market combat map prepared. (Instead, the GM may choose to have a blank sheet of Hex Paper, and use "pieces" to show where various Village Market obstacles are on the hex paper.) The more specific the location, the more important it is for the GM to have a specific map prepared. The GM may also have a selection of general terrain maps, for conflicts that take place in general types of areas, instead of taking place in very specific locations.

You will need one piece for every important character in the game. You will also need a piece for every significant object in the game, which is not already part of a combat map. (By significant object, I mean any visible object that the players are likely to interact with. For example, if there is a discarded spear the players are supposed to find out in the open, it would be best to have a piece for that spear, if it is not part of a map.)

After studying this tutorial, these should be all the reference materials the GM and players need to play the game. Some of the pages can help players create their PCs, others are designed only for the GM's use.