Talk:Mano a Mano
Contents
Proof-reading version 2009
Remove sections from the following list if they have been proofread since 1 January 2008. Add sections if they have been significantly changed since their last proofreading and need to be proofread again.
- Game Design
- Abilities: How good is this list? To what degree should a game need to customize it?
- Movement Abilities
- Combat Abilities
- Stealth and Detection Abilities
- Transportation Abilities
- Communication Abilities
- Other Abilities
- Disabilities
- Equipment: Make sure these lists are up to date and make sense. The new example template (human) should give us a solid point of reference.
- Equipment Lists
- Equipment CP
- Armor - example armor list
- Hand Weapons - example hand to hand weapon
- Missile Weapons - example long range weapon list
- Abilities: How good is this list? To what degree should a game need to customize it?
- Character Creation
- Description
- Build
- Character Abilities
- Choosing Occupations
- Character Equipment
- Encumbrance and Movement
- Extra CP
- Make a Character - Character Generation Example
- Choose the Type of Character You Want to Make
- Dimensions, Modifiers and Abilities from the Template
- Natural Weapons
- Use the Remaining CP to Customize the Character
- Occupation and Equipment
- Movement, Encumbrance and Toughness
- Action
- Damage
- Armor
- Stun, Damage and Toughness
- Rounds
- Movement
- List of Actions
- Hand to Hand Attacks
- Thrown Weapon Attacks
- Archery and Marksmanship Actions
- Grappling Actions
- Other Actions
- Attacking
- Grappling
- Archery and Marksmanship
- Stance and Position
- Mounted Combat
- Combat Example
- Damage
- Character Development
- Manufacturing and Modification
- Maximum CP
- Surgery
- Make an Item - Equipment Generation Example
- Modify Weapon Example
- Artificial Character Example
- Character Modification Example
- Manufacturing and Modification
Mano a Mano 2009
Character Points
- Remove all CP pools except for Template CP and Total CP. CP will be "spent" like money. During template and character generation CP can be tallied on scratch paper.
- CP scales should be linear. Simpler CP rules will make it easier to calculate CP
- Experience - whether measured in CP or smaller units - will not be on the character sheet.
- Maximum speed, agility, power, toughness and ability levels are campaign-dependent in the same way that CP levels are campaign dependent. Ordinary people and starting characters might have a budget of 300 CP and maximum abilities 2 levels higher than their templates (i.e. expert level.) Once the game starts and characters start gaining experience (more CP) you might have a higher level limit of 3 or even 4. In a superhero game, starting characters might have a budget of 1000 CP and maximum abilities 4 levels higher than their templates. A superhero game might also raise speed, agility, toughness and power limits. In some games you might want starting characters to have specialized elite skills (keep CP limit modest but allow 3 ability levels above template) In other games you might want characters to be able to start off with a variety of limited skills (more CP but keep 2 ability level limit.)
Making and Equipping PCs
- If the consequences of disabilities are easily avoided, then they should not have a negative CP value. Players need the GMs permission to add disabilities which aren't built into the game's templates. Characters should not have more than two disabilities.
- Characters can be male or female unless the template lists different options.
- Characters can be youths, adults or old people within normal size variance. To make a small child character without changing the template, reduce the mass, length, health and power to less than the template's variance suggests.
- The occupations rules say occupations can come with equipment. In character creation we can suggest starting occupations as a way to provide starting equipment.
- In addition to equipment acquired by occupations and craftsmanship, we can also suggest that a game can have other ways to provide characters with equipment, like spending money and finding treasure.
- The occupations example shows characters being awarded with a certain CP-worth of equipment. Instead we should say something like "in this example each item is worth it's CP value in small silver coins. The knight is rewarded with equipment whose value in coins equals the robber's CP."
Equipment List
- cover and absorption are now features
- +1 combat modifier is replaced by the equivalent "reach" feature which we might want to call "distance", "leverage" or "control" to suggest why flexible weapons don't have it.
- I removed spiked knuckles (in knife/gaff/spurs category) and ammunition except for the atlatl dart which is a heavy weapon in it's own right.
Character Sheet
Name Portrait
Age Sex Template
Occupation(s)
Abilities & Qualities Mod
/ Mass / kg
/ Length / m
/ Length Type
/ Variability
/
/
/ Speed /
/ Agility /
/ Power /
/ Toughness /
/
/
/ CP Value /
/
Equipment & Natural Defenses Features Mass Heft Power Cmb
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Carrying Capacity kg Areas Abs Types of Armor
Equipment Mass kg 1
Encumbrance 2
Ground Movement m 3
Water Movement m 4
Air Movement m 5
Climbing Movement m 6
______________________________ ______________________________
| Healthy |
Stun |_______________| Damage
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Compact Characters
Some games will have some characters who only need a little bit of information instead of full character sheets. A common example is stock villains and monsters which only need combat stats and sometimes a few special qualities or abilities. There are at least two situations where having a compact representation of characters can be useful:
- Battle-on-a-page where two facing pages of an RPG book contain everything a player or GM needs to play one side (the "NPC" side) of a battle. Sometimes this will only require a single character who fits on one page with a full character sheet. But if it involves more than 2 characters and the information that fits on their character sheets, then a full sized character sheet won't work.
- Book-of-beasties which contains dozens of creatures which need to be playable. Most of these creatures won't have equipment or need any kind of character development. On the other hand you may want templates for each critter. A full character sheet would allow you to have a character and template together, and there may be very little difference between a template and a playable character anyway.
| One option is a compressed character sheet using abbreviations: | |
N Joe Person (Qua/Abi)lities Mod A adult S m T human / O / CC 3 kg Mas 80/80 kg / EM 0 kg Lng 1.8/1.8 m / Enc 0 Typ height / Grd 4 m Var medium / H2O 0 m Spd 1 / 1 / Air 0 m Agi 3 / 3 / Clm 0 m Pwr 4 / 4 / CP 200/200 Tgh 6 / 6 / Equipment/ND Features Mas Hft Pwr Cmb 2 hands hand 2-4 3 2 feet 2-4 3 |
N Barbarian (Qua/Abi)lities Mod A adult S m T human swordsmanship 2/0 O barbarian / CC 30 kg Mas 100/80 kg / EM 3 kg Lng 1.8/1.8 m / Enc 0 Typ height / Grd 4 m Var medium / H2O 0 m Spd 1 / 1 / Air 0 m Agi 3 / 3 / Clm 0 m Pwr 8 / 4 / CP 252/200 Tgh 10 / 6 / Equipment/ND Features Mas Hft Pwr Cmb 2 hands hand 4-8 3 2 feet 4-8 3 1 big sword sharp reach 2handed 10 5 |
| Another option is a short, minimal list of stats: | |
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| A different type of compact character is a "how to" format for beginning players: | |
|
Joe Human You can move 4 meters before or after attacking. Attacking with the hands and feet:
For a combo, do any 2 of the following: quick strike, push, hold. When attacked:
|
Barbarian You can move 4 meters before or after attacking. Attacking with the big sword:
For a combo, do a quick strike, push or hold with the big sword and a quick strike, push or hold with the feet:
When attacked:
|
Variants
2D Success Rolls
Roll two six-sided dice instead of one six-sided die for attack and action rolls. The defense roll or roll against the action's success is replaced by a difficulty level which is 6 plus defense and difficulty modifiers. You can use a 12-sided die instead of two six-sided dice. You can also use a 10 sided die, but then difficulty should be 5 plus defense and difficulty modifiers.
Because there is no more defense roll, the area of armor hit can be based on a separate six-sided die roll, the lower of the two six-sided attack die rolls, half the value of the twelve-sided die roll (rounded up), or the difference between the attack roll and the difficulty.
3D Success Rolls
Similar to Mano a Mano 2D except that you roll 3 six-sided dice, 2 ten-sided dice or 1 twenty-sided die, the difficulty level is 10 plus defense and difficulty modifiers, and roll modifiers should be twice as big and worth half as many CP.
agility
- average template agility is 6
- maximum template agility is 12
- characters can have up to 2 more agility than their template
- each point of template agility is worth 15 CP
- each point of extra agility is worth 10 CP
abilities
- maximum template ability level is 4
- characters can have up to 8 more ability levels than their template
- each template ability level is worth 7.5 CP
- each extra ability level is worth 5 CP
circumstance modifiers
- -4 for very unfavorable circumstances
- -2 for unfavorable circumstances
- +2 for favorable circumstances
- +4 for very favorable circumstances
and so forth...
Armor area can be determined by a separate six-sided die roll or the lowest of the three six-sided attack dice rolled.
Percentile Success Rolls
Similar to Mano a Mano 2D except that you roll percentile dice instead of two six-sided dice, the difficulty level is 50% plus defense and difficulty modifiers, and roll modifiers should be 10 times as big and worth one-tenth as much CP:
agility
- average template agility is 30%
- maximum template agility is 60%
- characters can have up to 10% more agility than their template
- each point of template agility is worth 15 CP
- each point of extra agility is worth 10 CP
abilities
- maximum template ability level is 20%
- characters can have up to 40% more ability levels than their template
- each template ability level is worth 1.5 CP
- each extra ability level is worth 1 CP
circumstance modifiers
- -20% for very unfavorable circumstances
- -10% for unfavorable circumstances
- +10% for favorable circumstances
- +20% for very favorable circumstances
and so forth...
Armor area can be determined by a separate six-sided die roll or by the following method: Area 1 if the attack roll is less than 20%. Area 2 if the attack roll is less than 40%, Area 3 if the attack roll is less than 60%. Area 4 if the attack roll is less than 80%. Area 5 if the attack roll is less than 90% and Area 6 if the attack roll is 90 to 100%
Assume Full Cover
Instead of using the absorption and cover armor system, treat all body armor as if it had full cover - in other words simply subtract the armor's absorption from the damage of all attacks. However an attacker can aim any attack at the uncovered areas, which increases the difficulty by an amount equal to the armor's cover plus the cover of a helmet and shield if the character is wearing them. Optionally shields can be an exception to this rule: the absorption of shields is ignored but shield cover is added to all defense rolls.
Armor Increases Toughness
Instead of using the absorption and cover armor system, add the product of absorption multiplied by cover to the character's toughness. This also increases the character's healthy value (half of the new total toughness.) The character with more armor can take more hits without being injured or incapacitated. This sacrifices some detail but also removes a step from the combat rules. Optionally shields can be an exception to this rule: the absorption of shields is ignored but shield cover is added to all defense rolls.
Armor Improves Defense Rolls
Instead of using the absorption and cover armor system, add the absorption or cover (whichever is less) of the character's body armor, helmet and shield to the character's defense modifier. Optionally this can be used in combination with the Armor Increases Toughness variant where the product of absorption multiplied by cover is added to the character's toughness.
Random Damage
For each successful attack roll the smallest number of six-sided dice whose maximum total is equal to or greater than the attack power. For example if the power of an attack is 10, roll 2 six-sided dice. The damage or stun of the attack is based on the damage roll or the attack power, whichever is smaller. For example if the power of a sharp weapon attack is 10 and the damage roll is 7, then the attack does 7 damage, but if the damage roll is 12 the attack does 10 damage because it cannot do more damage than the power of the attack.
Alternately you could use dice with different numbers of sides instead of six sided dice. For example you could use the smallest number of 10-sided dice whose maximum total is equal to or greater than the attack power, or you could use a 4-sided die for 1, 2, 3 or 4 power, a 6-sided die for 5 or 6 power, an 8-sided die for 7 or 8 power, a 10-sided die for 9 or 10 power, a 12-sided die for 11 or 12 power, a 20-sided die for 13 to 20 power, two 20-sided dice for 21 to 40 power and three 20-sided dice for 41 to 60 power.
Editing Character Sheet
If you change the character sheet format when editing any of the following, you must update the others:
- Blank Character Sheet
- Example Template
- Example Character
- Clone character sheet in the Combat Example!
Be sure you know which character sheet you are updating:
- The template creation example includes both the blank character sheet and the example template.
- The character creation example includes both the example template and the example character sheet.
