Project Nemesis is a fan driven website for games that use the One-Roll Engine (like Nemesis, Wild Talents, Reign and Monsters) or Chaosium's Basic Roleplay System (BRP) (like Call of Cthulhu) and the Delta Green setting.
The Area (Width X Height) can be used as a function for the overall
"Story Impact" of an action. So a character is creating a work of art.
The roll comes up with a 2x5 and a 3x4. The character could make the
higher quality artwork (2x5) or the faster art piece (3x4)... but
looking at the area you have a 10 and a 12... the 3x4 art piece would
have a bigger impact (e.g. be better recieved, fetch a higher price,
etc.) than the 2x5.
Think of three different Impact 20ishs: 4x5
2x10
3x7
The 4x5 is notorious for the speed in which it happened... the 2x10 because it was so well executed and the 3x7 because it was fast and impressive. You could factor the "biggest multiplier" into the Impact to further customize what it actually means.
Impact = Effect
0 - 12 = No real impact: This effort has no lasting effects
13 - 19 = Significant Impact: This effort has some minor lasting effect
20 - 30 = Astonishing Impact: This effort has a major lasting effect
31+ = Earth-shattering Impact: This effort has numerous major and minor effects
You could look at the effects as Reputation, Infamy, Maiming, Infection, Value, etc. The action with the biggest Impact is the one which appears on the news that evening...
Hard Dice
Hard Dice count as 10 each. You punch some guys brain out with your 4hd of Body, and yeah, that's 40. Your face is going to appear beneath the question "Are talents out of control?"
"Today on Hannity & Colmes we discuss the growing Talent Menace... so, what do you think of this footage of this... what's his name? This 'Force Multiplier' character?"
Wiggle Dice
You can use Wiggle Dice to affect the manner of Impact. A 4x10 made with 3Wd's could be pulled off with such elegance, that it would only have an Impact of 10 if you wanted to do it on the sneak.
How it works in a Delta Green/Nemesis game
Maybe it gets on the news that local police are investigating an
unexplained trail of malformed and strange bodies in the sewers, but
can't come up with a single lead as to who killed them all and where
they came from?
Sort of like an X-files moment that leaks out into the media that makes
the player grin and say, "Yeah, I'm the awesome badass who did that,
but YOU'LL never know" talking at the TV screen about their latest
mission involving a pack of ghouls.
I think this is a truely cool mechanic. The only downside with it I can see is in combat.
You mention Maiming and Infection as possibilities, and I think those are excellent options. However, the suggested Areas mean that maiming and infection are far more likely to happen to certain body-parts than others.
An area of 20-30 is an Astonishing impact? That means that head wounds are going to get badly infected the whole time. (I have less of a problem with there being an Astonishing impact for being maimed. I have trouble concieving of how you get shot in the head and NOT maimed.)
Flipping the problem around...
It's going to be very difficult to get a situation where someone is Maimed in the legs.
For example, you'd need a Width of 7 to even put a leg wound attack on the board as having an Impact worth registering, and that's with Height 2.
Outside of combat, I will definitely be using the Area Impact rules.
Inside combat, I think that the slippage between hit-location automa...
Josh Chewning
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Well...
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192.128.166.68
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2007-10-23 16:08:27
As I mentioned when I threw out the concept (I'm cheeplives) that I hadn't really worked it all the way through, especially the numbers crunching. After laying down the rubric for what Areas determine what Impact, I definitely see what you're saying about maiming or infection. The more I think about it, I'd say that it might be better to think of Combat Impacts into the psychological realm... a particularly high impact attack might force an opponent to give in rather than be killed by an obviously superior opponent... or might make other foes break and run (like the Display Kill in Reign). You could even have Combat Impact interact with the Madness Meters in NEMESIS.
The Unshaven
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...Awesome.
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60.234.139.233
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2007-10-23 22:05:11
I think that's an excellent solution to the problem, and you're right; I know it's all in beta.
Impact being used to cover - how to describe this - related, but slightly abstracted consequences of an event or an action.
The whole Area thing is an excellent idea. I look forward to chewing on it and seeing what the community can come up with for it.
- The Unshaven.
Thomas Allwin
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I like it!
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84.55.70.93
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2007-10-24 14:27:30
Truly awesome ideas, though I'm not sure I like the Area impact for determining maiming/infection. I definately like linking it to the madness meter, however. Use the area of an attack to determine the intensity for a madness check against Violence. Simply dividing by ten _could_ work, though a scale of some sort would be better I think.
0-12 = no change, use base intensity as approperiate.
14-18 = 1 Intensity
20-25 = 2 Intensity
26-30 = 3 Intensity
32-35 = 4 Intensity
36-38 = 5 Intensity
40 = 6 Intensity
It could also be used in Wild Talents to determine the need for Stability checks against the use of certain powers (Harm comes to mind...), and of course to determine the impact an action has on the watching bystanders - or the villain to determine of he stays or flees.
In Reign you could use Area in combat to determine how many extra Inferior opponents you defeat, representing how many run away in fear, or surrender out of awe.
To use it for maiming/infection I think you'l...
Markus
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I use it for basi system too -
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151.75.246.48
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2007-10-28 16:12:19
It' a great idea for Nemesis. I was already doing something similar for gun shots. Generally speaking they can just either give a bruise or kill you ... so we decided to give a 1d6 x1d4 damage. You can get 1 o 24 from a bullet. the average damage should be 3.5 x 2.5 = 8.75 isn’t it ?
This could fit Unknown Armies too to determine a more unpredictable damage instead of the usual mechanics (05 is 5x10)
