Everybody's Halflings

Just think about it logically

The name "Halfling" raises some confusion. For most, the simple fact that Haflings are about half as tall as a human is enough, but is there some other meaning? In truth, Halflings are not their own race, nor are they a phenomena unique to humans. Halflings are basically, half people. It's fantasy dwarfism; having nothing to do with actual real life little people, of course. But in this case; they are "half" a person.

Scholars disagree what this means exactly. They have a soul, a physical body, and a mind- mostly capable of beings of any given race; but they aren't "all there". They tend to see things a bit simpler- more like children. They're a bundle of simple stereotypes and drives- based on the race that spawned them. The reason Halflings are so laid back, love to live in rolling green farms, smoke weed and drink ale all day while the rest of the world passes them by is because they are only halfway to humans- the great longing to find the secrets of the universe, the search for passion and meaning- absent. Only the bare minimum of cultures. Wholesome, fulfilling, but simple.

But why do only humans seem to have these "Halflings" associated with them? Well, that's not actually true. Every race does.

Elves have halflings, they are called Gnomes.

Orcs have Goblins.

Dragonborn halflings are Kobolds. You may ask where dragons fit into this, and that's simple, dragonborn are actually Halflings of them. So Kobolds are half of a half, which is why are objectively not people and it's okay to break into their warrens and kill them for their shiny stuff.

Dwarves don't have halflings because dwarves are already halflings. Think about it; they basically act as stereotypes already, only caring about beer, mining, and forging with silly accents? Dwarves are the Halflings of the ancient great progenitor race of Giants, who once forged weapons for the Gods; now made silly and gold obsessed with cave-driven evolutionary adaptation. Also explains why they don't have darkvision; Giants live on the surface.

Sometimes the process works in reverse, at least in terms of size. The Halflings of Hyenas are actually Gnolls, which sounds weird until you consider how stupid and one-note Gnolls tend to be compared to the advanced social systems of hyena packs. Just look at the success rate of hyenas; they clearly have more going on upstairs then a fucking gnoll.

Drow have halflings too, and those are those weird little dark imp looking darkling creepy crawly gollum looking things you see sometimes in media but doesn't really have a specific overarching name but are totally common enough to be a fantasy race.

Ents have dryads. (Or those could be Halflings of trees?)

And those little magical pixie/fairy type creatures you can catch in jars and are generally helpful and nice? Those are the Halflings of the True Fae. The "halfing" aspect of them shaved off all of the extremely dangerous subtly and depth to what the Fae are like. They just give gifts and helpful little spells instead of actually ruining your whole family line while "helping" you with a problem.

What about Ogres? They tend to be pretty humanoid, just bigger. Are they doublelings? No, they're halflings too. Just of something way bigger and way, way worse.

Hits as Perils (Hit-Points Rework System)

But aren't they though? Hit Points are kind of unnecessary beancounting that gets in the way of fun.

Note; This blogpost is partially a shitpost based on the above comment, which is in itself a bit pretentious and shitposty. I don't seriously have a problem with hit points, nor any disconnects they may cause with the verisimilitude of the game world- such as high level characters being not threatened by lesser weapons. This can be explained away easily. Plus in terms of it being beancounting- I've personally never experienced any annoyance at keeping track of HP. If anything, players seem to enjoy having a rolling HP total to keep track of, the one figure on their character sheet that is the most pressing and important of them all. After all, if that number reaches zero, you'll die- it's more important and interesting to keep track of then say weight or rations. Plus, Hit-Points are probably one of the strongest metrics of risk-vs-reward gameplay and the most obvious "resource" of the resource management common in roleplaying but especially in OSR play. You have a clear and obvious sign of how much danger you are likely in at any given time simply by knowing how damaged you are- knowing roughly how much damage a failed roll or an enemy monster will do gives you more tactical decision making then if, say, a game simply had every hazard have a small chance to kill you.

However, especially in progression-based games with growing health pools, combat encounters with multiple damage and healing events in any given combat- monster attacks and spells, healing potions or allied spells, inspirations and temporary HP, etc- these can be a bit distracting and take away from the immediately interesting part of simulating a game world; the threat in front of you. This concept made me think of how to streamline or move the Hit-Points and damage system of a generic roleplaying game into being something simple and easy to understand, quick to adjudicate, while also being able to plug in to as many existing systems as possible to avoid friction.

One system that has a non Hit-Points systems is Into the Odd. Now technically it does have Hit-Points, but these are more like a shield before you take damage to your Body stat, which also reduces your ability to fight or take further damage. (At least, that's how I remember it working- I could be totally wrong. Been a long time.) I actually like this system for a lot of reasons over a traditional Hit-Point system, since taking damage also impacts your ability to deal or sustain further damage- a more realistic take on injury that, while it can result in a death spiral, makes taking damage more meaningful. Traditionally; a character with full HP and one Hit-Point remaining have the same ability scores, same movement speed, same power of spells or attacks, and so on. It doesn't have to be realistic by any means but I think it gamifies the concept of taking damage or injury TOO much, making it harder to simulate and create situations that feel at home in the game world itself. As such, these combined factors lead to this very rough concept; The Peril System.

The Peril System
Whenever you are hit by an enemy attack, struck by an offensive spell, caught in a trap, encounter a natural hazard, or otherwise take any form of damage or risk- you encounter Peril. There are two types of Perils- Peril and Mortal Peril. Standard Perils essentially make your situation worse, requiring valuable time, resources, or inflicting nasty status effects or weaknesses that will harm your ability to continue fighting or exploring. Mortal Perils work differently. When you are struck with a Mortal Peril, your character is essentially toast- the same as a monster with a very powerful attack or instant-death spell. So for example, a dragon's Fire Breath would deal enough damage to kill most characters, so it would be considered a Mortal Peril, as failure against it would be deadly. 

I also feel like I should mention here; all of this applies to the Players' Hit-Points, not monsters or NPCs. They still use normal systems. The idea is to get rid of player bean counting, but GM counting is par for the course.

This may make Mortal Perils sound extremely dangerous- but remember that the Peril is always done after your other form of mitigation or chance to avoid the danger. ie; Perils are the replacement for hit-point damage. So if a monster hits you on an attack roll vs your AC, then you are hit with a Peril. If you fail a saving throw, you might get hit with a Mortal Peril, and so on.

So if a monster hits you, instead of dealing damage, what negative thing happens to your character? It depends on the monster and situation. The general idea is that instead of standard damage, each infliction of an attack or spell does something negative and harms your character's abilities in some way. Some of this could be more mechanical (ie; dealing damage to stat points or causing morale checks), but the intention is that these are more flavorful, essentially roleplaying or game-world-simulating problems that crop up to make your adventure more difficult.

For example- a Goblin stabs you with a punji stick. Instead of dealing 1d4 damage; the wound washed clean or else you will get very sick and need to amputate the limb or die of infection. In mechanics terms, that means the party must have access to clean water in order to wash out your wound. They can expend a ration or a spell to use some water, or in some dungeons it would be trivial to find a clean stream to use instead. Note how despite not being a mortal peril, regular perils can still be very serious, it is still putting you in peril, just not immediate. It still represents a loss of either resources or weakens your party in some way, which is the point of HP loss, simply abstracted from numbers.

Instead of saying "my character's down twenty five Hit Points" in this system, you'd say something like "I'm sick, my shoes are melted to the floor, I'm blinded, and my damn hair is on fire". Both characters have taken the same amount of punishment and aren't looking too good.

Mortal Perils
Mortal Perils are a bit of a strange one. The idea behind Mortal Perils is to replace attacks that are dangerous enough to kill characters anyway; so attacks or spells that deal enough hit point damage to kill outright and that don't have another mechanic (like Save v Death) would feel about the same, but it may feel bad for a high level character to get instantly murdered by one bad hit against an otherwise regular enemy if it was strong enough to be considered "mortal". One simple concept would be that if the player characters are equal or higher level to the threat, then the 'Mortal Peril' becomes a regular Peril instead. ie; if you get bonked over the head by a troll's club as a staring character, your head gets smashed and you die, but if you're a high level character, the injury just stuns you for a round, dents your helmet, and makes you lose 1d4 points of Intelligence permanently. If you get hit in the head with a dented helmet, then it would be treated as a Mortal Peril instead, and so on. Simple way to incorporate player level into your survivability without using hit points.

The second Mortal Peril concept is to either use a simple lives system, or bennies, as an exchange to prevent instant character death. For instance, if you would take a Mortal Peril, you can give up one of your characters life tokens to just barely avoid death. You only have a limited amount of these and they do not come back per rest or even session- probably just per character. I really like the idea of starting with none of these actually, getting one per level up, and maybe healing or magic spells (such as Healing Potions) essentially restore these instead of healing hit points. So in-universe the healing potion is knitting together your wounds and restoring your vitality but in rules it's giving you back the one bit of protection you get from a one hit death. This is still basically a hit point system, just a much simpler and easier to track, so it doesn't 100% follow our guideline at the top, but I think it's a concession that makes the game more fun. I also think certain mechanics, monsters, or character classes could really add to a system as simple as this. Imagine if Paladins using Lay On Hands doesn't heal hit points, but instead just lets them give you their own life tokens as a way to protect their party members while sacrificing their own safety. Imagine if undead creatures that use drain life don't take away or restore their own hit points by suck away your "soul" temporarily, which means they basically steal a life token. But if you slay that undead, you can get it back, meaning you might be stuck in a dungeon in a lose-lose situation; do you go chasing after the ghost holding your last life token or do you take a risk on your return to the surface; with one lucky crossbow trap could kill you?

Final Mortal Peril concept- the DM picks a stat most fitting based on the Peril you are in and you can choose to half that stat permanently or die. Fail a save vs acid breath? Charisma halved. Yes, half, and the reason why it is a choice is because some people would rather just kill off their own character then continue on like that. I don't blame them. This could be its whole own post but for as much as the OSR/New-Weird/blogosphere loves their death and dismemberment tables, mutation tables, spell cataclysm rolls, their "scar" and "trauma" systems- people don't want to go on playing gimped characters, so just give them a choice to accept it and move on with a fresh character to roll. At least, that's what I would do with something this nasty.

Perils in Combat
The idea behind perils is to replicate the effects of HP. How do we do this in a fight? If you can take an unlimited number of perils, then characters can just fight forever without going down, right? Not necessarily. The idea is that perils put you in enough danger that you could be killed, but typically you'd need to get hit by a few or expend other resources (armor, one-time use abilities, lucky rolls, etc.) that eventually you could get worn down. As with the above example, higher level characters can downgrade certain Mortal Perils into regular ones- you could extend this concept to lesser Perils of a certain type. So in the above example Peril of getting stabbed by a nasty, shit-covered spear- a Paladin of a certain level may become immune to all earthly diseases. This means that for them? They can just ignore that Peril entirely. Would that make him totally immune to a goblin encounter? As per RAW, yes, which I think is fine. It's the equivalent of a high level character with tons of healing and action surges and the like all going into a fight against much lesser opponents; they realistically can't die from it so it's the same as not needing HP at all. But for most combat encounters, Perils work as a time, turn, and resource pressure as an HP replacement.

Regular Perils are also dynamic and can lead to character death and real danger. For example, a common peril of man eating monsters like Giants or Dragons may be a grab move. That Peril ties you up, meaning you can't attack and need to struggle to break free OR have a teammate come free you. But on the dragon's next turn, if you're still grabbed, it will attempt to bite your head off and kill you. The regular Peril has progressed to a Mortal Peril. The idea is the same as if you had been hit by a strong attack, and the same tension of being down to 1 HP and the next attack will kill you is the same here.

Status effects not specific to spells or abilities are also somewhat uncommon, but could be employed here. The difficulty is in keeping track. One example for a common catch-all sort of mechanic is whenever your character is bleeding. Since it doesn't have HP damage, whenever you bleed at all; the effect of the blood loss doesn't matter unless it's lethal amounts of blood loss or isn't bandaged (Mortal Peril?) so in this case, I would say that anyone who is suffering from a bleeding wound now enrages bloodsucking creatures; making them more likely to be targeted by them or having higher To-Hit rolls, stacking on more Perils, or potentially having the chance to upgrade a regular Peril into a Mortal Peril. Once again, we're starting to get into simulating the exact same thing as an HP system, so this still needs more ironing out, but I feel like there is a creative space here where this works. 

Next; Weapons. Weapons are interesting here because player weapon choices tend to be more impactful, where as NPC weapon choices are less important since it's typically just the numbers that matter. Some games or systems may include alternate rules as weapons vs AC To-Hit tables, but the idea of players switching up what armor they wear or protection they bring along vs specific weapons (if they even know what they're going against) seems extremely niche and silly. In this regard, the Peril system actually offers more interesting gameplay, because Perils could be unique to weapon types or even individual enemy weapons. Normally you don't care if an Orc is smacking you with a d8 Axe or a d8 Longsword unless you have some special feature that gives you an AC bonus against that weapon type or some extremely niche scenario like that. Having Perils fixes that and could make fights more interesting. An example being the triangular wounds of a bayonet being less immediately deadly then say a sword or axe, but being much harder to stitch up makes them an interesting peril on their own. Once again, this is an NPC thing- players will still have all the fun of normal weapons since they're still rolling damage dice and all that.

Finally; Armor. The removal of HP means that Fighters or tank-type characters are going to be less effective in this system, being as vulnerable to standard Perils as other characters are MINUS the normal effectiveness of their AC, their saves, etc. since Perils happen AFTER normal mitigation. With that being said, I still think making Fighters more durable even when they fail their rolls or protections is fine and fits the theme of the game. Maybe it's a class feature, maybe it's just inbuilt in the system. As mentioned above, common Perils will often do things like "dent your armor" or "give you a scratch", which are not dangerous in an of themselves, but a second Peril of the same type will likely have a much worse effect. This means that the strongest armor (worn by Fighters) still grants additional protection as would having a higher HP pool, keeping the class roles and feeling of gameplay similar.

The Big Peril Table
Finally, to round out this blogpost, here's a big list of Perils. These Perils are listed alphabetically based on the type of damage or spell, with possible monsters that use these attacks listed in the parenthesis. Use the search function to find a relevant list of Perils. 

To keep it interesting, each one has also been split into a d6 table, which you could randomly pick (whichever is most interesting) or roll on to keep encounters fresh. Higher numbers are also associated with more dangerous or costly Perils, so you could apply a simple modifier of +1 or -1, or have all enemies of a lower HD then the player character hit roll a 1d4 for the Peril instead of a 1d6, with higher HD enemies rolling a 2d6 and taking the better of the two rolls, etc. You get the idea.

Editing Note; about 80% through writing this table I realized I was just writing death & dismemberment instead of the idea of Perils that I had originally thought of. However, I think in the end it works, because perilous situations are too specific and situational to the fiction of the game world to be written in table format like this. In such a case, use the Peril concept as a method to weaken and add challenge to the game, and then this could be an additive version for more ideas, or an alternative De&Dis table for funsies. In any case, I hope you find some use out of it!

Acid (Slime, Ooze, Traps, Spells, Black Dragon)
If you're covered in oil OR can splash water on yourself immediately (takes a combat round if you have a bucket or can jump into a stream, etc.) you can lower the roll result by -2, but with a minimum of always 1.

[1] Your skin is red and blistered. You get -1 to Finesse/Lockpicking/Dexterity rolls until it has time to heal. If you roll this result while already blistered, reroll and take the new result.

[2] You jump away from the acid, narrowly avoiding it splashing on you, but you bump into the nearest large and fragile precarious object (like a giant urn) causing it to fall, shatter, and make a tremendous noise. If no large precarious objects are nearby, you bump into an ally instead causing them to get accidentally splashed with some acid and blistered (roll result one for them).

[3] You get a bit of acid on you. Each round you don't wash it, it burns through another layer. First round, puts a hole in armor and lowers your AC by -1. Second round, burns through your clothes and ruins your whole outfit. Third round you lose -1 Constitution as it burns your skin and flesh. You can also avoid this peril by spending a combat round throwing your armor off, but it will corrode away and be lost by the time you can recover it safely.

[4] Pool of acid forms around your feet as you jump onto an elevated surface like a table or large paving stone. The object is slowly sinking into the now weakened ground. You cannot move around to dodge or attack in melee. You can jump off yourself if you have Dexterity modifier of +1 or better, otherwise you need someone to rescue you. Requires a round from each of you to pull them to safety. 

[5] Nasty burn in an obvious place; hands or face. It heals but not right, -1 Charisma modifier the first time it happens. Every time after, simply causes immense pain and makes unable to do anything but roll around in agony until cool water or ointment is applied.

[6] Some gets in an eye. You go blind in one eye. If it happens again, it's the other one.

Arrows / Crossbow Bolts (Bandits, Elves, Demihumans, Archers, Traps)
Whenever you encounter an Arrow/Bolt Peril, your shield can block it if you're aware of the danger. Lower the roll result by -1 per AC bonus of your shield. If you get to 0, the arrow is stuck in the shield and has no other effect. Getting shot at by one archer is a regular peril, getting hit with a volley or an ambush by a group of highly trained archers is a mortal peril.

[1] The arrow misses you, but causes another problem. Flame arrow hits something explosive, giving you a round to run and jump or be exploded. Regular arrow hits your lantern you are holding, causing you to drop it and start a small fire. If you have a nearby animal or retainer that is not from a class feature (ie; not animal companion), the arrow hits them instead causing immediate serious but non-fatal wounds.

[2] The arrow narrowly misses and lodged itself in the hem of your robe, the soft part of your cap, or the end of your cloak and pinned you to the ground or wall. You can only move away if you pull the arrow out (takes a round) or by pulling yourself free, which rips the article of clothing.

[3] The arrow grazes your arm or leg. You are now suffering a minor bleed. The wound can be tracked by hounds, sharks, and intelligent humanoids if it is not bandaged up.

[4] The arrow hits flesh on an extremity. To remove it, you must push the arrowhead through the flesh and bandage up the wound. The cries of pain will be enough to alert nearby patrols of your presence or attract predatory animals unless you can succeed a save.

[5] The arrow lodges itself in your achillies tendon. You are temporarily unable to run or walk. After removing the arrow, your overland travel speed is halved for the next few weeks until it is fully healed- either taking longer to travel or rolling for two encounters per hex unless you have someone to carry you or you're riding a horse.

[6] The arrow has pierced a body cavity or was glued on the shaft with honey and now cannot be safely removed. Once the shaft is pulled free, the arrowhead will remain inside the body for the rest of the person's natural life, causing them a small amount of pain when moving that area. (If you want a more mechanical impact: -1 Dexterity permanently.)

Blunt Damage (Ogres, clubs, living tree branches, falling rocks)
You can receive the same perils in this category multiples times each with stacking effects.

[1] Bruises to the arms and legs. -1 Strength until you get a good's night sleep.

[2] Bruises to the chest and torso. -1 Strength AND Constitution. Heals after a few days. Alternatively? You can't hold your breath for the rest of the day. Doesn't sound that bad until you have to run across the poison gas pits, or hide from the scary revenant black riders, or swim down the one-way-water tunnel of death.

[3] Knocks one object you're holding out of your hand. The object is as damaged as it would be if you threw it against the floor as hard as you can; since that's what basically happened. You get to pick the object.

[4] Dents your armor or chestplate. You can't breathe right until you take it off, giving disadvantage on all rolls until you do and losing protection once you do. Requires a noisy bit of hammering over a day (or a turn with a Dwarf) to buff the dent out. If you aren't wearing chest armor, it just breaks a rib instead, making you lose -1 Constitution permanently.

[5] Crunches one of your hands. You have to bandage it and wait for it to heal up for a season before you can use it effectively again.  You get to pick the hand.

[6] Hits you in the head. You lose -1 Intelligence permanently and forget your name, how to get home, and favorite magic spell. If you're wearing a helmet, pick one of those three things and you'll remember it a few weeks later. If you're wearing padding underneath the helmet, you get to pick a second one, but you always lose the third.

Cold Damage (Ice magic, frozen enemies, ice fairies, abominable snowmen)
Every Cold Peril you are suffering from causes the next one to get worse, increasing the result by +1. If you get duplicates, just take the one above the one you rolled.

[1] You shiver, causing you to shake around anything you're carrying or holding. Only a real problem with a lit bomb. If you have a source of heat (torch) or are wearing heavy winter clothing, this only lasts one round, otherwise, one turn.

[2] Your teeth chatter from the cold, causing stealth to become almost impossible unless you can put something in your mouth to stop the noise. If you have a source of heat (torch) or are wearing heavy winter clothing, this only lasts one round, otherwise, one turn.

[3] Any liquids you are carrying (potions) freeze inside their bottles. This doesn't damage or waste them, but you do need to make a fire and spend a turn warming them up by it to thaw them out.

[4] One object you are wearing or carrying becomes brittle. Your warhammer is only good for one more attack, or it will shatter apart. Your breastplate cracks and deforms the next time you are hit, and so on. The object becomes dusted in ice and frost; if you can avoid using or damaging it will regain its normal toughness after it warms up in one turn.

[5] You develop hypothermia, losing -1 Dexterity per turn before you get warmed up. This requires at least a long rest to fully recover from.

[6] You are frozen solid. One solid attack by a blunt weapon or strong creature will shatter you into pieces (Mortal Peril). Until then, your party has to carry you around as a very heavy piece of "treasure" or encumbrance until they can find a place to thaw you out safely or use some sort of magic to restore you back to normal.

Curse Damage (ghost touch, cursed items, dark spells, ominous fog, witches, hags)
Most of the time, the effects of a curse or touch are already spelled out. This is more for getting his with dark magic or generic "damage" from occult sources. Armor offers no protection, but a protective talisman or holy symbol lets you roll twice and pick the least-worst result.

[1] Bad Aura. Everyone around you thinks you feel off and there is a feeling of unease. You make horses nervous and flighty, cats hiss, and babies cry. It goes away the next time you go to church.

[2] Three laughing skulls, bats, little devils, or inky black crow spirits start flying around your head. You get disadvantage to aim or spells and you can't look up as they are going for your eyes until you manage to shoo them away. 

[3] Supernatural Fear. Make a morale check or flee. Even if you succeed the check, you are still scared or nervous and get disadvantage on the next one until you calm down.

[4] Depression. Like a Dementor's kiss. Everything feels gray and meaningless. Character cannot do any kind of performance checks and will automatically fail any magic item or effect that requires a "will to live" or "force of personality" to be used. Chocolate helps, but can only be cured by the next time you or your party achieves a major victory.

[5] Your life-force was drained, causing you to look older and your hair to turn white. Whatever hit you with this peril has an object imbued with a glowing light, and you can restore your life-force by retrieving that object. If you're more hardcore, this can just cause premature aging that you can't really do anything about; this only becomes a mortal peril if you age up enough times that it could theoretically kill you from old age.

[6] Voodoo Doll. The next time it makes sense; you find a voodoo doll that looks exactly like you. You're stuck taking care of it; as any damage it receives is reflected on you. Any Peril that damages or messes up your inventory will effect the voodoo doll. If you drop your pack into the river, you will start drowning on land as the doll sinks, and so on. This one needs a curse-breaker to get rid of it.

Fall Damage (Birds, dragons, rickety bridges, air magic, shot out of a catapult)
I imagine most fall damage would count as a Mortal Peril, since there are few outcomes depending on the height and few ways to save yourself. However, if you want a more Perils-As-Hit-Points way to simulate fall damage, here are some ideas.

[1] Collapse into a heap of dust. When you get up, you need to dust yourself off, else leave a small smoke trail or cough and mess up your next spell incantation from the dirt on you.

[2] You fall onto your side and feel something crack. It's not you; but it is a fragile item on your person. Usually, just a single healing potion or a wand if you're magically inclined; but a more specific or important item can be broken instead if you don't have anything that could realistically break on impact.

[3] Crash through an awning, top of a wagon, or bundle of trees and carefully curated glassware. Besides being stunned for one round so you can't run away, the owner of the store or traveling merchant you just got flung into is going to be very angry and wants to implement a "you break it, you buy it" policy. If you're traveling or in a dungeon, just have yourself fall on your own camp or something idk.

[4] Breaks a leg. Requires an actual skilled healer to bind it up, and takes a season to heal. You can't flee combat and travel at half speed without a horse or wagon.

[5] As [3], but instead of into an allied or neutral force, you get thrown into a nest of vipers, a river of crocodiles, or dropping into the nest of a giant bird to be fed to her babies. You're still stunned for a round.

[6] You manage to catch yourself from a greater fall (mortal peril) but on an object that is slowly breaking or can't handle your weight; like a tree at the edge of a ravine or the last rope from the rope-bridge. Somebody needs to pull you up within the next turn or else it will give and you will plunge to your death.

Fire Damage (Flamethrowers, elementals, burning oil, dragon breath)
Fire hazards are the most chaotic. If you gain one of these perils while adjacent to an ally, they gain one too unless if they are fighting defensively or have some fire resistance. While this peril could be any that fit, I'd just make it a result of [1] to make it less harsh.

[1] Your hat, hair, or headdress is on fire! It will go out on its own in one combat round or in a few seconds unless if you jump, run, tumble (make a saving throw), etc. If you do this, then the fire spreads and get worse. Easiest way to fix it is to throw your hat on the ground and stomp on it. If it's not a hat you can easily remove, you'd better get our your knife and cut it off then instead.

[2] Singed. Eyebrows burnt off, black soot, cartoonishly blown back hair. You're coughing a lot and it stings; you cannot cast spells until you can wash it off in a cool clean stream or expending a water ration.

[3] Your whole body is tender and turned red from the flash-fire, meaning you cannot wear any clothes without extreme discomfort. Remove your armor and lose all magic properties and bonus AC until you cool off in a day.

[4] Crispy! Your outer clothes and skin are charred black or heavily burnt and singed. You leave a black trail of soot wherever you go and have a permanent black mark on anything you touch for the next 1d4 days. Any clothes you wear or objects you touch are permanently ruined and stained.

[5] You are engulfed in flame from head to toe. Stop whatever you are doing and run to the nearest source of water, fine sand, or something else to put out the fire. If you perform any other action the flame engulfs you and kills you. No, stop drop and roll doesn't work in medieval times, it wasn't invented until way later or something.

[6] One piece of metal touching you closely like a ring, helmet, or piece of armor is heated up so much it turns red hot. Your skin is burnt and fuses to the metal, meaning it cannot be removed without a skilled surgeon; akin to a cursed item. This is probably the most gross and unrealistic Peril on this list, but I think it's a cool way to do fire damage that isn't just "more burnt". 

Fists (Unarmed strikes, monks, martial arts, punching traps)
If you got your own fists up and are in a fighting stance, you can reroll a roll of [6] on this table. That's only if you get hit with a suckerpunch.

[1] Arms, wrist, or body blows of little impact. You are folding back from the assault, but otherwise unharmed. You have -1 AC against this attacker but only for the next combat round.

[2] Hits you right in the side. You get -1 Constitution until you sleep it off.

[3] Take it on the chin- your footwork is wobbly. -1 AC from all attacks for the rest of this combat and you can't make any complex maneuvers like tumbles or dodge rolls.

[4] Stunning strike! Karate chop to the sternum! You can step back and be stunned for one round OR you get hit in the head and see double; you have a 50% chance to miss your intended target. You also can't read any spellbooks or count up treasure for at least a day.

[5] Your attacker can disarm you and either take your weapon, throw it away in the most inconvenient place, or redirect your strike into the nearest ally; whichever is worse for you.

[6] Out cold. Takes a few hours or smelling salts to wake you up. You're totally helpless if you're in combat, and your party members will have to drag you around until you can be helped.

Lightning Damage (shocking grasp, lightning bolt, thunder magic, storm giants, static discharge, Diablo 2 beetles)
Lightning damage can only effect you if you're grounded (have at least one foot on the ground), if you are hit with a lightning peril while flying it doesn't do anything until you become grounded or the next time you are struck with a metal item (in which case it hits whoever hit you instead).

[1] Your hair goes spiky and you get a little singed. Doesn't do much but makes you look ridiculous, -1 Charisma until you can groom yourself.

[2] Uncomfortable buzz. Anyone who touches you gets a mean static shock and disrupts any healing or blessing spells used on you. Lasts for a day or until you touch water.

[3] If you're holding a metal object like a sword or lantern, you have to drop it as it sparks wildly. If you're not holding a metal item, then you just get a nasty shock and your armor gets a little magnetic; lowers your AC by -1 against metal weapons.

[4] Temporarily electrified; you shake and are stunned for one round. If you've gotten hit by another Lightning Peril this combat encounter, it bounces to your nearest ally and stuns them too. If they were hit by another Lightning peril before, then it chains off of them and so on.

[5] Knocked off your feet backwards from the source of the Peril in an arcing electrical explosion; 20 to 30 feet. Anyone you are directly next to or anything you were riding also gets blasted back but only half as far in a different direction.

[6] You get zapped really bad. Knocked prone, your heart stops beating. You'll die if someone doesn't do chest compressions for a turn (can't revive you during combat). Even if revived, you'll have seizures for the rest of your life unless restored by a powerful healing spell. (Once per session, the GM/DM can make you roll a save or you shake uncontrollably for two combat rounds. This is bad enough to make you fall off your horse.)

Magic Damage (Magic Missile, Arcane elements, Wizards, Familiars, Runic Traps, Spellbooks)
This Peril type is specific to flashy, arcane, wizard-y style attacks and spells; like magic missile or generic glowing energy beam wand/staff attacks. If you are hit by a spell that is elemental, then that element should be used first. If it's a telekinesis shove, use Blunt or Fist damage, If it's dark magic or from an evil witch, use the curse damage table instead and so on.)

[1] Blinding colorful lights flash before your eyes, causing you to make your next attack roll at disadvantage.

[2] Your skin is burned with arcane sigils and runes that glow in the dark. You can cover them with clothing. They seem really mystical and spooky but it's honestly just swearwords. Take multiple months to go away or if you know the trick you can just rub a crystal over them to scratch them off. You get -1 to saving throws vs spells while these runes are on your body.

[3] Random magic item that can be activated you are carrying goes off. To prevent this from being an easy TPK; the person holding the item can make a check to direct the magic spell towards enemies or in a direction where nobody can get hurt as long as they aren't distracted by another effect.

[4] Summons a 1 HD creature from another dimension either from your belongings, next to you, or jumping out of a portal to attack you. Its temperament and relationship to you is determined by a reaction check; it's permanently stuck on this plane until its killed or hit with another spell to send it back.

[5] One spell you know or have prepared at random has its effect reversed. The DM makes a secret note of this, but tells you that one of your spells HAS flipped,  just not which one. If you study your notes and spellbook you can remember the spell the right way to do it and the trap is no longer set.

[6] You are turned into an animal! Roll a d20 vs your Charisma. If you roll under, you get to pick something small, harmless, and maybe useful like a rat or a bat. If you roll over, the DM gets to pick instead. While in this form you can't talk or attack but have full control and memory over your old self, but are vulnerable to being stepped on or eaten. You also drop all your items and otherwise become mostly useless. Your party members can keep you in their backpack to keep you safe. The next time you sleep and wake up, you're back to normal.

Piercing Damage (Spears, dagger points, rapiers, Monster teeth, spike traps)
If you're carrying a shield, you can have that pierced through or shredded to avoid any one of these effects.

[1] Grazes you, leaving a scratch. Next time you roll for any Peril result add +1 to the roll just to make it a little worse.

[2] Presses hard into you, stopped by a small trinket that takes the brunt of the force instead. Minor damage to a spellbook, bed roll, or medical bag you are carrying.

[3] You get bitten or poked in the neck. The force was only enough to break the skin, but you still have trouble breathing and make all rolls at disadvantage and you cannot cast spells. You must spend a round to catch your breath to end the effect. If you're in a dusty tomb, a smokey tavern, or breathing in foul miasma or ash it takes three combat rounds instead.

[4] With a sharp point coming at you, you drop what you're holding and grab it with both hands in a life-or-death struggle. You get stuck holding a spear (or the jaws if it's a big monster) by the shaft with your hands and can hold it for one round until it overcomes you and pierces your chest (Mortal Peril). Somebody else must succeed an attack roll to force the enemy off of you. You can hold the spear for an extra round per positive Strength modifier you have.

[5] The tip pushes into your flesh, causing you immense pain. If you're getting bitten instead, the creature latches on. You're stuck in a lose-lose situation; prevents you from moving. If you do pull yourself off the spear, suffer bleeding and make all rolls at disadvantage until you can be bandaged up.

[6] You get stabbed or bitten right in the torso, causing you to go into shock and require immediate medical care or your condition will worsen. You will recover after one season but only with a warm bed, good food, and a dedicated healer. If you're missing one of those things, lose -2 Constitution permanently. If you're missing two of things, you suffer complications and die.

Poison Damage (Snakes, Poison Darts, Dart Frogs, Assassins)
If the poison is bad enough that simply touching it can hurt you, probably go with the Acid table instead. If an arrow or other similar threat is poisoned, you only have to deal with the poison peril instead of the arrow peril; not both.

[1] You just start throwing up everywhere. If you ate today, you lose that ration and will need another later once you can stomach food again.

[2] You start turning green and lose -1 points of Wisdom or Strength, whichever is most fitting to the poison. If someone sucks on the wound and spits it out, you'll recover in a turn, otherwise, 1d3 days.

[3] Your veins turn black and travel up to your face and eyes. You become unable to speak for a day, which means no spells.

[4] You become extremely feeble and sickly the next time you have downtime, losing -3 Constitution which you slowly recovery over a season. If you don't drink an antidote or chew medicinal herbs in the next three days, then you lose -1 point of Constitution permanently.

[5] You feel a looming sensation of dread, but no other ill effects thinking maybe it missed. If you don't do a folk remedy, drink an antidote potion, or have a healer watch over you constantly; you'll die in your sleep from the insidious, slow-acting poison.

[6] Immediately putrefies the extremity that was bitten. Every round, it spreads to the next part of the body towards the heart (finger to hand to elbow to shoulder to chest). Somebody has to cut it off before it spreads too far.

Psychic Damage (Aboleths, Mind Flayers, Horrorterrors, Magic mirrors, some magic items & traps)
"Psychic damage" in this case could mean actual psychic spells or enemies, or it more means emotional or brain/mental assaults as simplified and flavored through a fantasy lens. While the idea behind this Peril system is to avoid hit points, I think having points of sanity or whatever is fine as a way to soak the character-changing effects listed here. Maybe something like the roll result on this Peril table is absorbed with minor, curable effects equal to your Wisdom score, but once you exceed that, then the effects happen as written. Since these effects are purely mental and mostly roleplayed, they are more severe then the physical effects written on other tables.

[1] Your character becomes terrified for 1d4 rounds, being forced to run away or cower each round they fail a moral check or saving throw. If you're not in combat, save or scream and attract a wandering monster roll.

[2] You gain a minor phobia for whatever is causing the psychic damage or the last Peril category you rolled on. The phobia just makes your character intensely dislike and avoid it, but causes no other rolls or effects. If you get this a second time for the same peril, object, or creature the phobia gets so bad you run away screaming every time you encounter it.

[3] Your character becomes an amnesiac and forgets who they are or what they are doing for 1d6 exploration turns. During this time, their class abilities are removed and they can only do actions as an untrained commoner. They cannot cast any spells beyond first level/cantrips.

[4] You gain an imaginary friend. You must share half your treasure with the friend.

[5] Character's face is frozen in fear, rage, despair, or rapturous joy. This causes no loss of charisma, but they always act like this chosen face and cannot order or express things that go against this emotion until a remove curse is used on them. 

[6] Your mind is swapped with the nearest living thing, an ally, or the creature that caused this effect. You gain the abilities of that creature and vice versa, but are distinctly not them. If one of you dies, the other will be stuck in the original body. The two creatures must be kept in each others presence for about a year before they swap back to normal, and both must be present if cured with a remove curse spell or mindswapping power.

Sharp Damage (Swords, claws, cutting winds, blade traps)
Probably one of the most common types of damage in a game, so it's going to be the most common peril. All of them except a roll of one require a bandage item or strip of cloth to bind up in addition to their usual effects.

[1] Merely a scratch! Has no effect on its own, but the next time you roll for any Peril result add +1 to the roll just to make it a little worse.

[2] You dodge out of the way at the last second, but the cutting edge finds the nearest and least convenient bit of rope or fabric to sever. Could be the hood hiding your identity, the rope to the chandelier that now comes falling down towards your head, the leather strap keeping your quiver attached to you, or the jungle vine dropping a nest of killer hornets. Whatever it is, it's probably as inconvenient for the cutter as it is for you.

[3] Bleeding Cut. Persistent wound that drips a trail of blood that can be tracked by blood-seeking creatures. Adding an extra bandage can stop this effect for one turn, but it resumes afterwards until it fully heals.

[4] Deeper Cut. Lose a bunch of blood in a big pool, making you feel woozy. You roll for disadvantage to climb, cross a balance beam, jump a gap, etc. for the next day or so.

[5] Deepest Cut. You must use one arm to press down on the wound else you will faint from rapid blood loss. You can still fight or run or whatever but one of your arms is disabled the whole time.

[6] Pick your nose, ear, tail, or boob. Whichever one you pick has been cut off almost completely, and is barely hanging on by a thread. It can be saved, but only if you don't get hit by another peril before you can stitch it back on. If you do take another peril, replace it with that body part falling off and being permanently lost.

Tentacle Damage (Kraken, Giant Octopus, Mind Flayers, Lovecraftian monsters, animate rope,  giant snakes, animate jungle vines, giant prehensile tail, rubber blob monster, etc.)
Most damage here could be used as bashing or fist; but this is specifically for flexible tentacles, worms, or other such creatures that could grab you, constrict you, etc. Anyone with a Strength modifier of +1 or better can resist some of the worst effects of this and gets to lower the result of their roll by -1

[1] Wraps loosely around a single arm, preventing you from using it or moving away unless you thrash it away with a successful attack against the creature with your other arm or pull away, taking a combat round and forcing you to move.

[2] Slaps the floor next to you or brushes against a leg. If you're in any way slippery, wet, on uneven flooring or not wearing good shoes you fall to the ground. Otherwise, your movement is halved for this round.

[3] Constricts around both lower legs. Arms and mouth are freed, but you must be cut free to be loosed. If the creature is stunned in any way, you can also slip free.

[4] Constricts the neck or head. You can move and attack, but cannot see or cast spells. If you attack, you attack a random target, which can include your allies or the creature grabbing you. All ranged attacks miss while grabbed this way.

[5] Grabs and flings you or bats you aside as a giant fleshy whip. You get thrown back in a random direction against a wall (stunning you one round and denting your armor) or flings you into 1d2 other party members (all are knocked prone for a round and must untangle themselves to do anything)

[6] Full constriction. Arms bound at the sides and legs dangling uselessly; you begin to get squeezed. Each round you lose 1d4 Constitution until you drop to zero, in which case your spine is snapped and you die. No mortal peril for this, you just have to get saved quickly enough.

Toxic Gas Damage (Toxic gas traps, Dragon farts, fat undead, demons, mushroom spores)
If you have a bandana covering your mouth or a free hand to reach up to cover your mouth you only roll a 1d4 on this table, though you can't use that hand for anything else for 1d4 rounds as you cough around the gas. This table is also specifically for toxic gases that could kill or seriously damage people in them; corrosive acid clouds or poison gases from evil swamps are more for the Acid and Poison table respectively.

[1] Cough a lot, not much else. You can't cast spells for the next 1d4 rounds.

[2] Blisters form all over your face, nose, and lips; but you thankfully avoided the worst of it. You lose -1d4 Charisma temporarily until it heals in a few days.

[3] The gas itself makes you cough, but it's also extremely flammable. Any spark from a spell, parrying a weapon, or an open torch flame could cause it to explode (Mortal Peril). Get out of the room or let it air out to avoid this hazard.

[4] Edema. After exposure, your hands and feet swell up and double in size. You can't wear gloves or boots until the body parts are drained, can't pick locks, and can't sneak. You can still fight in melee, but you can't use "fancy" weapons like rapiers or whips with your meaty flesh mitts.

[5] You inhale sharply, eyes going wide, and fall to the floor. You need your mouth forced open and a breath of fresh air in order to recover; which is easier said then done in a dungeon. Spells or a "beak" of perfumed air can help you; otherwise you will eventually open your mouth and breath again but lose -2 Strength permanently from the clenching. Your skin also permanently has a greenish tint.

[6] Cancerous cysts and growth explode all over your arms, legs, and chest. You will need a clean knife, someone with a steady hand, and a way to manage the pain to cut it off before it saps you of your strength and kills you. This process takes a whole night and if you're missing any of those elements you will die before morning either from the toxins or a botched removal surgery.

In Defense of Race as Culture + 8 Universal Origins for People

Art @Su Jian

Often browsing internet forums or writing advice blogs, you will often hear the adage of "writing a fictional fantasy or sci-fi race with only one culture is bad writing", and this is true! Classics include Klingons, fantasy Dwarves, always-evil Orcs, and other such examples. The idea of an entire polity of intelligent beings, at least as smart or socialized as humans, yet not having even close to the same amount of diversity of cultures and ethnicities (or "races"; we're using the term race = species here as a colloquialism), does seem to raise some alarm bells and a lack of care for the detail and belivability of a fictional world.

The cause of this phenomena is talked about a lot, so I won't spend much time writing on it. Basically, everyone who writes these types of stories is a human, and humans are pretty much the only intelligent "race" of beings on our planet. As such, we see differences amongst ourselves much better then we do other living creatures. For example, most people couldn't tell the difference looking at an adult male or female tiger unless you put them right next to each other. The stripes, fur, hips, skull construction, everything is too similar unless you're some kind of zookeeper or something. Humans are designed to see differences in other humans, so we naturally gloss over the differences in a fictional nonhuman race. (One could argue this is actually genius level writing; portraying all members of a fantasy race as stereotypes is just the unreliable human narrator or the viewer own lens ignorant of the deep culture differences between deciduous forest elves and conifer-elves, but we're not gonna go there.)

Secondly, the overhead of writers and authors to create (and audiences to consume) is too much for a full human-level of detail and breakdown for different fantasy races with their own cultures and history. There is only so much room in a game or book or show or whatever else to dedicate to such extraneous fluff. As such, they are simplified. This creates a sense of "fakeness" and one-dimensionality to these fantasy races, making them walking stereotypes. Surely, the elves would have their own many factions and cultures. They can't all be tree dwelling, bow using, magical immortals with a penchant for sneering at younger races, right? Is having an entire race of ultra-capitalists in a sprawling sci-fi setting creating a less believable world, no matter how well developed they actually are? 

I think with the bottom-to-top worldbuilding design of creating and explaining every little detail of a world, yes, I think having fantasy races as monocultures is a bit lazy and could veer into bad writing. But in my opinion? Monolithic and one-dimensional races are not bad at all. This is because they are not representative of an actual fantasy race of people but, instead, are essentially the fantastical, exaggerated fantasy versions of real-life heritage and diversity.

Art @Timbukdrew (these are my favorite troglodytes ever btw)

Humans are Not a Race
Perhaps because of playing so many non-human characters, imagining settings with them, or generally consuming media with a smattering of different fantasy races I personally don't find myself with some special connection to fellow humans as portrayed in fantasy worlds. Instead, I just think of intelligent beings in fantasy as just being some vague kind of people. It also helps if we don't use the label of "human" for one or more fantasy races. One good example would be the Elder Scrolls or Lord of the Rings; while they may be "Men", the differences between them are still significant. After all, Hobbits are a race of men too, despite them being wayyyy different from the other "humans" in Tolkien's works, both physically and culturally (mentally?).

In the real world, different human genetic traits evolved due to evolutionary and selective (cultural) pressures. While this topic is obviously contentious, it is in inarguable fact of biology. It cannot be denied without a creationist argument. Even so, I still very strongly feel that the genetic difference between two of the most distant human groups still capable of interbreeding is still probably less then the differences then a Nord and a Breton, or a High Elf and a Dark Elf. They're still the same race, but the differences between them are exaggerated, made fantastical, more apparent to highlight the differences and potential gameplay impacts (which is the only thing anybody actually cares about) that your choice of character race will have on your playthrough.

Of course, "genetic distance" and DNA and shit doesn't exist in fantasy anyway. It's a misnomer. They exist but only as vague concepts that direct how the author and audience expect things to work unless something "else" is going on in the fantasy world. In the real world, somebody can't be half animal, because the genetics don't work like that. But in a fantasy world? Someone can be half horse or half bull or whatever, and potentially pass that trait on. Somebody can also just be touched by supernatural spirits, or be part of a cursed bloodline, or whatever else the author makes up. While logically or "realistically" orcs and elves and humans can't be part of the same species, they can still occupy that space thematically.

Imagine you are traveling along a road in medieval times. After a long enough walk, two villages could have totally different dialects, totally different industries and ways of living, different food and dress, different cultures and customs, and they may even look just a little bit different physically too. These differences are minor, scaling with distance traveled. In a fantasy world? It's the same, except exaggerated. Made fantastical and unreal by the creator and the reader, so much so that the next village over is not run by humans, but little badgers living in little holes under the ground. They aren't literally the same species under a complex set of genetic rules and cultural histories creating these differences; but instead a way to make that pop and become something that inspires awe and intrigue. This is why I don't mind when a fantasy race is boring or one-dimensional. They're only one-dimensional when compared to the real world, but in the fantasy world? They make up part of the tapestry.

Also to improve this rambling post a bit; a random table you can roll on to worldbuild where all your different fantasy races are actually all from the same place and we should like not fight in race wars in stuff because we're all really the same and stuff.

Universal Origins - Roll 1d8
[1] The Gods each made their own race out of the same special clay. Each is molded to look different and do different things, but in the end, they're all from the womb of the earth. Mortals can do this too, but only a fraction of their power; this is where golems come from.

[2] All of the races were uplifted are from different animals, which came first, and were magically transformed into Man-Shape. Orcs are pigs, elves from foxes, dwarves from goats, humans from flightless birds and so on. What about animal people? They were the first drafts, which is why those races are more bestial and less developed; cast aside as failed experiments.

[3] Do the Goblin Punch thing where all the races are uplifted genetic castes made for specific purposes by a precursor race. But don't make the precursors "true" Elves or some super powerful aliens; make it gnomes. Every time there is a secret plot or evil conspiracy, it's always the fucking gnomes.

[4] The first being in the world had many offspring that it split off from itself to admire creation. These beings are all just pieces of the whole. The eyes of the Elves, the arms and hands of the Dwarves, the horns of the Oni; all pieces of the true being. When the players finally arrange all the pieces together and zap it with lightning to bring it to life, it actually looks really horrific and it's basically a Lovecraftian monster that is their progenitor; not some creature of great beauty and grace.

[5] The world was actually a trial for souls, one representing each race, to overcome adversity and purify themselves to ascend into heaven to sit besides the Throne of God. Each one of these heroes was given a form that representing their emotional state and greatest faults they had to overcome. The Elf was a soul in love with nature and peace, needing to learn how to be practical. The Orc had a fiery temper and had to learn patience, and so on. The problem? The trial is over, they're all gone. It was made for individuals, and their offspring and families were just left behind later. Those ancient ancestral heroes are all chilling in heaven and don't really care about you anymore. You're just the leftovers.

[6] Each race is really from another demiplane that was once perfect for them. Endless rolling green hills for the halflings, toxic swamps with much prey for the lizardfolk, and so on. Eventually, the demiplanes fused together with cosmic planar gravity; the world is its accretion disc. Racism and stuff happens because you kinda weren't meant to ever exist together, so it's hard to adapt. Don't get mad when demons and freaky outsiders try to open portals to your dimension; they're just trying to join in with everyone else.

[7] When God made the world in all its complexity and design he took all the souls of all the people who would ever be born and asked them what they wanted to be and when all of them said they wanted to be kings and beautiful creatures and all powerful he got mad and just mixed them up in a pot and just spilled them out so that's why you're short and stubby and eat your damn mushroom soup.

[8] We all actually "evolved" over a "billions of years" from a single extremely simple creature called a "single celled organism". Scholars laugh at this nonsense; point to the statues of their Gods which look exactly like them. It just makes more sense.

I hate the Technocracy (MAGE WoD)

I can never talk about World of Darkness shit because I'm always afraid I'll get it wrong. It's such an old series of games and books, with multiple changed editions, some with totally different lore. I'm too casual for it. My World of Darkness experience is limited to a few games of vampire, one Hunter, a shitty play-by-post RP Forum game set in the setting but with none of the rules, reading the wikis, and pirated .pdfs. As such, I feel I can never speak with any authority on the subject, as I'm 100% sure my ideas about the setting are either headcanon confused as real stuff, other people's headcanon, or just flat out misremembered stuff I read from years ago. However, that doesn't stop me from really enjoying the implied setting, spitballing new ideas, and seeing what people make of it. No matter how much I read about WoD there always seems to be more.

But time and time again, something about MAGE really bothers me. MAGE in particular I feel like is the weakest and most contentious bit of the WoD, and is widely considered one of the hardest games to both run and play in, despite WRAITH having every player needing to play both their own character and a foil shadow to another character too. The Storyteller is just so loaded down in MAGE. I don't think this is a contentious opinion; I also frequented a roleplaying site for multiple years where a single dedicated GM continually tried recruiting for his WoD Mage game, in a place where people's games would usually fill up quite fast. I admire the dedication. But MAGE in particular bugs me.

I think the main issue with MAGE in terms of its universal appeal is its trying to be too broad and all-encompassing in scope. You're taking this core idea of "reality is what you make of it" or "reality is consensus", which works great for a highly focused piece of work like Unknown Armies, another favorite game/setting of mine, BUT you're also trying to tie it into the mythology and "monster"-fantasy of being a Witch or Wizard. I feel like you're creating an innate problem here. Vampire works great because you get what you say on the tin, you're a vampire. The game encompasses a massive amount of vampire mythology, and even encompasses some creatures that aren't traditional vampires yet all of them can safely fit into its mythology. It's scope is simple enough to understand and becomes a creative tool; restriction breeds creativity and all. But MAGE is basically anything you want as a magic user; no unifying themes other then the core rules of Spheres of power. Lip service to Ars Magica, but none of the actual grounding in Medieval Europe to tie it all together. It's trying to fit the fantasy of being Harry Potter, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the Wizards of Waverly Place, Wizards101, Charmed, Wanted, and all that other shit together in one unified splat. I just think it's flawed. I personally think it would have been much better if it was just trying to be one of those; just let me play a Teenager Wizard trying to keep their powers a secret or else they'll get their powers taken away by the evil wizard police or whatever. Normie opinion? Fine.

But I get why people like MAGE. You can basically create anything you want and fit it into the rules; a conspiracy theorist seeing numerology in the stock market manipulating reality, a Wicca with some punch behind her practices, the kids from Chronicle and that one X-Files episode, and it all kinda just works. For those who like it, I can't OBJECTIVELY say it's bad, I just think it suffers from trying to be too philosophical. But you know what part of MAGE I can say is objectively bad? The Technocracy.

The Technocracy in Lore
I have read two version of MAGE. I don't remember which is which and I don't care to do so, just know I've seen both the oWoD and nWoD versions. To explain my limited knowledge of this topic, I will reiterate my understanding.

In the first (older?) WoD splat, the world is in a fallen state. Achieving enlightenment was once possible, but the ladder to climb to reach it was kicked down by those above; the Supernal world is the philosophical and power end-goal of all Mages in this edition of the splat. The Technocracy is another faction, even one allied with the standard Mages of this edition, using super science and technology as their form of "magic" in this world. They're still breaking the rules, but to the sleepers and unawakened, it's a slightly easier sell. Essentially, they're like those spy gadgets in movies. Nothing overtly supernatural is happening, but they're still working magic, as objective reality doesn't allow what they're doing in the strictest sense. It's an interesting potential faction in a game like this which is very gnostic in its theme (as if I haven't talked about that enough on this blog), but I personally dislike it due to the theme of "magic magic is real" which is supposed to induate the rest of the splat.

Then? The second splat. This one has the technocracy being its own faction, one of several compared to the Order of Hermes (the good guys), Marauders (crazy mages) and Nephandi (the actual bad guys). Here the technocracy are like the Agent Smith's of this splat, helping to keep down the reality threats in a world that should, in most cases, side with them. Reality is built on consensus and in the modern world, with religion all but dead and science and rationality being so strongly held in belief with normal people that the technocracy are all but indomitable. Then, they have Extraordinary Citizens who are basically the magictek science-driven form of Sorcerers. Both editions of MAGE mention this Extraordinary Citizen concept by this name.

And it is some of the worst, most tone-deaf shit I have ever read in my life.

The Core Problem
The entire point of World of Darkness is that the world is dark. Not necessarily grimdark, but depressing and always a bit sad, always a bit degraded. Every single splat of WoD, no matter what it is, has a very strong theme of loss and slow decay or degradation over time.

Vampires slowly lose their humanity. Werewolves gain too much rage and become animals. Changelings gain banality and eventually forget they were ever fairies- their enchanted existence becomes mundane and boring. This last one is really important. Mage has its own morality/essence mechanic in the form of Quiet. This isn't the issue to me, the issue here is tone and theme.

The entire concept behind Mage is that the world is what we make of it. Human belief and superstition changes what is objective and real. Magic in the WoD is rare and precious because... most people don't believe in magic. Mages are constantly fighting an uphill battle to create magic because they're fighting their own version of banality, but in this case, it's objective scientific fact. Education, capitalism, and communication have eliminated so much of the folk traditions and beliefs that magic is becoming almost impossible to achieve- at least effects that look especially unreal and impossible. This is true even though belief is supposed to be localized and fluid; even in the middle of the woods around none of the sleepers making something levitate by itself is difficult because the stink of "what comes up must come down" is so strong that it even happens even when no-one is looking. This is supposed to be the aspect of MAGE that is sad, that is dark, that is your uphill battle. That human achievement is limited by what we think is possible, that people accused of crimes can't actually be innocent because nobody gets accused without a good reason, or that "everyone is out for themselves" being a belief so ingrained that it becomes part of reality. This concept is even directly stated in the Nephandi book, for fallen sorcerers, who are actively trying to make the world a worse place by spreading these ideas and misery into the world. So what is the Technocracy doing with special divisions, intentional conspiracies nobody can breach into, and extraordinary citizens? I hate this concept. 

The Technocracy doesn't need any of this shit, because the Technocracy already won. In the battle for reality, the boring, safe, practical minds already infected themselves into every single person on Earth, crushing down the once beautiful systems of belief and being and magic that was once possible in every human soul, now most of which are asleep, going through the motions of what is expected of them. They only care about contributing to society; making money and living in a family, because the thought they could be out having epic adventures or exploring realms beyond Earth or slaying dragons and creatures of the night is childish, impossible, and out of their comfort zone of reality. This is supposed to be what MAGE is about, but the entire concept is completely ruined by the Technocracy as some entity.

So for me; the Technocracy still exists in MAGE, but it is faceless. There are no extraordinary citizens. There are no secret gadgets or conspiracy. Those who teach and learn the scientific method, and who crush the human soul out of the real world by asking you to point it out on their anatomy chart, are just as dangerous and diabolical as the Marauders; not asking for consent as they change the reality around you to their own twisted song. But for the Technocrats, it's worse. They are the middle managers of the gray eternity, perhaps even destined to turn humans into nothing but the intelligent primates they evolved from. How do you know we evolved from primates? Because they dug up a skeleton and all the DNA they discovered pointed to it. Why are there fossils? Why is there DNA? Why did humans evolve at all? Because they believe it so, and every time they're being proven right. "That is true" is the most common, endlessly repeated, and all-powerful magic spell. And that is why they are winning; not just today, but in the past too. Retroactively changing the mythical past of humanity into just myths and dreams and revisions of history, because those things "just aren't possible".

This, to me, is what makes the Technocracy scary; not a neat little list of special "divisions" that are basically just the orders of Mages but with different names. I have always imagined this to be the true enemy of the awakened ones in the WoD; something faceless and impossible to reason with, something infecting every corner of the globe and every human mind with the crushing endless repetition of "TRUTH", unassailable in all ways, as impossible to snuff out as knowledge and as eternal as the concept of a state. It's the one world order of the reasonable, the cautious, spreading by industry and information itself. That is what the Technocracy should be.

12 Shawls & Scarves that are actually cool creatures

Free Hireling (w/ random rolled stats)

12 Neck-Pets
[1] Pocket Ferret. Playful and cuddly. Sleeps on your shoulders but can be coaxed into crawling on people and stealing things straight out of their pockets. Very smart and well trained, but greedy for treats.

[2] Seadragon. Looks like a leafy bit of seaweed or kelp held around the neck, but will put its head up and shoots explosive 1d4 damage bubbles that knock people back if it's master is threatened. Can't survive out of water without a good spell on it.

[3] Feathered Serpent. Bites the end of its tail like a clasp around the neck, otherwise looks like a feather boa. Can fly and spits feverish poison that turns your whole body red and cooks the hair off your scalp. You can survive it by being submerged in water but it'll boil anything smaller then a pond.

[4] Caterpillar. Not good for much but awfully cute and lovable. Keeps you warm in cold climates, consider it as good as a heavy winter coat. After 2d6 seasons of feeding and taking care of it, it inexplicable curls into a hardened cocoon, emerges in 2d6 days, and gives one last look of recognition of its owner being flying off into the sky. You will never see it again.

[5] Vine-strangler. Covered in flowers and green vines which look more like oiled threads. Wraps tightly around anyone else who doesn't smell like its owner, so no touching.

[6] Paper Chain. Looks like the classic people holding hands but will "flip" its appearance and color based on the situation. May looks like villagers dancing one minute, but the next time you get into combat it will look like a bunch of orcs and skeletons slashing each other with axes. The wearer can't be Charmed or Confused while wearing this; the little papers take the brunt of the spells, turning into kissing (or fucking) paper doll figures or dancing around with mugs like some demented craft project.

[7] Living Poppet. Shawls of simple, frayed cloth at the ends, plush head and hands that flatten in fear, clutching close to its owner. You probably made this as a kid and it came to life, even if you don't remember it. Too wholesome to steal or fight anything, but can talk in a tiny whisper (but only to you), usually whatever it is afraid of at the moment is right around the corner. +1 to not be surprised.

[8] Flamingo. Really, really skinny. Beak can break open tough shrimps and crabs, probably works on locks too.

[9] Spiderweb shawl. Looks like something a Drow would wear. Can be used as rope and a net with strong and sticky strands. The "creature" that lives in the web isn't actually a spider, it's a poor little moth that was cursed to be trapped in this spider web and can't get out no matter what you try. Probably made by a Giant Evil Spider.

[10] Sky Ray. Silky gray leather cowl that is actually a magical flying version of a manta ray. Can't actually attack, but getting one of these things loosed at your head is a really good way of interrupting rival magic users while you blast them.

[11] Furry Longspider. It's a more "cute" and "approachable" type of arachnid with long fluffy legs and a small little fat body and a cute little set of horrifying eyes. It's body can fit in the palm of your hands but it's legs are about as long as your arm. It's venom causes paralysis on a bite or poisoned blade after 1d4 turns of application; evolved to bite itself to go to sleep after meals which is why its so limp and fine with being carried around on someone's neck.

[12] Flatbear. Exactly what it sounds like.

Felvidek is pretty cool + Turn-Based Combat Depth

Just finished Felvidek. It's another quirky RPGMaker game in the same vein as Hylics, Black Souls, and Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden with basic turn based JRPG combat, quirky humor, and a unique artstyle to carry it. I quite enjoyed the games visual style, and the medieval writing was the best part, but was a little disappointed by the lack of gameplay and enemy variety by the ending. I finished it in about four hours, mind you with constant runbacks to towns and churches to heal up and constantly upgrading my gear, as well as two reloads with a small amount of backtracking needed, so the actual playtime is probably a bit less. Still, much better to end early then outstay its welcome. 

It's main selling point is the main characters, an alcoholic knight Pavol with a hilariously unfaithful wife and Matej, a pious monk acting as the straight man getting into highjinks and adventures together, and their dynamic is both fun and memorable. Their roles aren't as differentiated in combat, but Matej can put up a bit of a fight too and isn't just a healer, which is a nice change of pace from what you might expect. Overall, I think the game is just mid, and a bit overpriced for what it is (more then Fear & Hunger which is so much more "game" then this) it's a bit hard to recommend at the present moment. More unique music and more of those fun PS1 inspired cutscenes would have really made it a complete product, but it's fine to pick up on a sale if you got an afternoon to kill. But enough about the game as a whole, let's talk about the gameplay.

However one thing I can say is this game at least tries to explore the idea-space of JRPG style combat, which is something that can't be said for all RPGMaker style games. Namely, some enemies in this game have armor, reducing the amount of damage you deal to them. In an effort to make this game more interesting, it isn't an insignificant amount of protection either; your attacks dealing about half their regular damage. Your character's weapons determine some of their Feints, special moves ala spells, and equipping a sword allows for the Half-Swording move (which I can happily report is actually half swording, and not the Mordhau grip! Pet peeve averted.) and what this move does besides dealing a chunk of damage is reduce or remove enemy armor for a few turns, giving you a chance to deal full damage with other attacks until that tougher enemy is defeated.

While extremely simple, the concept behind this intrigued me and ended up flinging me down a rabbit hole of the huge amount of possible depth and strategy in what is otherwise the absolute most basic type of turn based combat imaginable; the JRPG style. I'll put this in with my previous posts on Vampire Survivors and Halls of Torment, two tangentially related topics of discussing here. I could have sworn I've touched on this before, but this is a good time to go over it during the mandatory multi-year-long-blog-content drought lol

The Simplest Game
JRPG style combat is really simple. It's a mathematical game of reducing the number of enemies hit points to zero while keeping yours above zero, with different scenarios or matchups changing what moves or abilities are best. Besides the occasional random element, such as damage numbers, turn order, critical strikes & missed attacks, enemy moves, or other shakeups- turn based combat without hidden information can be made into a "solved game". I think this has a negative connotation, despite not necessarily being a bad thing in its own right, the idea of a purely numerical planned experience would take a lot of fun out of the "gameplay".

While not technically the simplest form of combat or game that exists, I think the JRPG style combat is the least involved and most "simple" to actually play or design, with the greatest depth not involving other mechanics. What I mean by this is while an action game can be technically much simpler then a turn based game, such as enemies simply needing to be jumped on to be defeated ala Mario Bros, the physics, speed, character control, give it more depth and complexity. Action RPGs like Diablo have their similarities as well, but still have a focus on movement and aim or crowd control that isn't the same. I'd argue that since turn based games are simply picking options in a menu, with no time pressure or other forms of mechanics, it's still a more "simple" game overall. This applies to its closet counterpart in the form of the Tabletop RPG.

No other video game genre really fits as closely, at least in terms of combat mechanics, then the generic JRPG- action RPGs are too tactile and based on a totally different skill set, and strategy games lack the same single-unit control that is central to the common theme of a traditional tabletop RPG. There is also an argument to be said that tactile games, like Fire Emblem, can closely match a tabletop game in terms of mechanics. While I would admit this is true for games with heavy use of figurines and battlemaps, I think the majority of games I've personally been in have been theater of the mind combat, which in my opinion is more parallel to the quintessential JRPG style "simplest" possible engagements of numbers, preparation, resource-management, and action-economy as congruently close to the tabletop experience. You don't have to worry about getting zoned by faster enemies with ranged attacks, timing your i-frames during a perfect dodge roll, or opportunities to use your healing items in the midst of enemy attacks and interruptions; it's a pure numbers game.

So with that out of the way; how much depth can you really squeeze out of turn based combat?

Action Economy
One feature of turn based games that are unique to them is the very high importance on an action economy. In action or real-time games, this is less important (or arguably more important) because of the real time nature of the controls and instant feedback of your various moves or actions. In turn based games however, action economy plays a very vital role, mostly in the form of when it breaks.

In a traditional turn-based combat game, every unit or character is going to get one action per turn. This means each party member you have grants exponential more moves and possibilities for your turn. Even a relatively useless party member with low stats or no special moves can still be extremely useful, simply as a way to use items or acting as a soak for damage, as enemy attacks will sometimes hit them instead of your "more useful" party members. (More on that later). Secondly, anything that takes away actions, such as stuns or similar status-effects, are going to be very strong and needed to be used sparingly. One of my biggest gripes about Felvidek is that there are multiple enemies that can perform a stunning blow, and most turns you'll have one of your party members stunned and not able to use their actual useful or cool moves. You can also do it yourself, which is something I intentionally didn't abuse because I wanted to interface with other parts of the combat system. (Felvidek isn't going to be talked about much more here; I just wanted to say it explored these combat mechanics more then a lot of RPGMaker slop I've played but not as much as it could have, which inspired this blogpost).

This action economy also influences other forms of player psychology and behavior. The much-loathed "useless" status effect spells or consumable items in JRPGs are prime causalities of the action economy. I'd wager people are much more comfortable playing a buff/debuff heavy character in an Action RPG or wargame where the cost of doing a curse to an enemy or a weaker buff on an ally is a few seconds of movement (just extends the fight a few seconds, or means you need to dodge one more attack) or is at the cost of a single specialized unit that isn't doing much else anyway, as opposed to a JRPG style game (or tabletop game) where using up one of your few (or only) action in a round on something that can either fail, has minimal impact, or will only extend the fight pointlessly. ie; why would you inflict an enemy with poison if you can kill them faster with basic attacks? The only way to fix this is to make the status effects necessary to deal with on the player side (really annoying), or highly desirable AND communicate their value to the player (not always easy to do).

Additionally, some games have abilities that are very strong or useful, but come at the cost of a future or previous turn. I actually really like these moves as I think they tend to be strong enough to justify them. Hylics 2 has my favorite example of this in Pongorma's unique gesture, Lightning. Lightning is one of the most satisfying moves in the entire game, and stays constantly useful as it scales on the character's power stat, so even as the enemy's get stronger, you can continually increase how much damage it is. It also has probably one of the best turn based combat animation sounds in the history of any game ever, immortalized in the above .gif

However upon reading the description for Lightning one starts to see its strategic depth. If it was simply a stronger version of a standard attack that required Will points (the mana resource), it would be one thing, but Lightning has the effect of dealing 175% of your normal attack damage and stunning Pangorma for one round afterwards. This means in an extended battle it is always better to just attack twice for overall damage. However, if you have a method of increasing your damage temporarily (like Charge-Up, we'll get to that later) or you need an enemy dead now, then Lightning becomes an invaluable tool. Hylics makes heavy use of enemies telegraphing stronger attacks with the Charge-Up mechanic, and the game is tightly balanced enough that a Pangorma lightning on an enemy with a little more focus fire is just enough to knock them out before they can unleash whatever nasty move they want to do on your next turn. The same mechanic also appears in Felvidek too, in which using the Gun feint just straight up shoots a gun at a single enemy and does like 4x the damage of any normal attack, but the character has to 'reload' the next round, and can't act. While identical to Lightning I find this one less interesting as it's more about balancing the cost of the skill rather then the action economy/time investment, and since Felvidek's feints are so expensive you're only going to get to use them 2-3 times a fight for each character.

Similarly, Charge-Up is another move in Hylics. Charge-Up is unique in that enemy's also can use it, and always do it prior to using their strongest move, giving the player a chance to react by either focus firing that enemy, using the guard action, or otherwise trying to survive. Charge-Up also applies to the next move you perform, meaning it can also be used just to give a boost to a basic attack. However, it won't apply to using an item, guarding, or getting stunned; meaning you can still react and save it for when you need it and can't "waste" it, at least as far as I remember. I think stunning enemies with Charge-Up active (an extremely rare/endgame gesture is required as well, Hylics doesn't give you abilities like this very much) doesn't dispel it either, just giving you an extra turn.

The other interesting thing about Charge-Up is that if has unique effects on certain gestures; specifically the character-unique gestures that each of your party members have. While most gestures are learned in the world and shared among all party members, these ones come built-in with each character and tend to be the bedrock of your strategies. This further does something unique by making each party member actually play differently in the turn based generic JRPG style game, with a type of role-specificity that most other games don't have when spamming whatever basic attack or highest-damage to lowest-cost ratio spell you have available. What this adds is further depth to your planning and action-economy; choosing to use a weaker version of a gesture in a single turn, or charge up to a big and powerful attack or support move that can change the whole tide of battle.

There are also an entire host and genre of JRPGs that let you just straight up give turns from one party member to another, or "reserve" them for later use. I actually don't like these. However, I can't deny the high amount of tactical depth they can bring to a game. Being able to pass on a turn (but causing the party member who goes again to become exhausted and do less damage) was a great mechanic in Bug Fables, another turn based game, though more in the vein of Paper Mario then a RPGMaker game.

Damage & Defense
Overall, combat in tabletop games and JRPG-style games is very simple. It is simply an attack that deals damage to the enemy, with no overall baring on the enemy's ability to do their own actions (hit stun), no over-committing or stagger from a bad whiffed attack on the player's part, and no innate catchup or progressive battle mechanics. In other words, do attack and number go down until you win.

However, there is a massive amount of potential for how this can and is expanded. Though many of the games I've covered here have some of these mechanics, most do not have all. Despite such a simple base system, I can already see a few methods of offense/defense that can infer your strategies.

Base HP- Attacks deal damage to this. No special properties.
Evasion- Attacks have a chance to miss. Analogous to AC.
Armor- Attack damage is reduced by a flat or percentage value. Analogous to DR.
Regeneration- Small amount of Hit Points are regenerated each turn. Usually a buff or status-effect.

Obviously there are more mechanics then these, but even with these extremely basic four stats, I can see a massive amount of potential for a game's mechanics. For example, fighting a creature like a blob or a bear with a high Hit-Point pool (or a boss) but no other defensive abilities is significantly different then fighting a standard enemy. The game may feature damage-over-time moves or status effects like poison or fire that deal damage each round. For standard enemies with lower health pools, these attacks are slow to act and less efficient in defeating them. ie; your standard attack does 10 damage but your DoT spell deals 4 damage per round for three rounds. Overall the DoT is better, dealing 12 damage after 3 turns, but your standard attack deals more now. You can see the strategy forming already; against an enemy with ~20 hit points, standard attacks are better, as after two rounds you can defeat it, where as the damage over time + standard attack move would only have dealt 18 damage at this point (4 + 4 + 10), where as the damage over time move is better against a high health enemy like a boss, as you'll do more damage overall mixing it with standard attacks; after three rounds it would deal 32 damage total instead of just 30 with three basic attacks. Simple, but already creates a dynamic.

Evasion and Armor function similarly, either by avoiding attacks and increasing the number of hits that you need to land or deal to deal with that opponent. However, certain attacks (magic, true strike, area of effect, etc.) may be able to have no chance of being avoided, where as armor could be bypassed by similar moves. The actual mathematics work out to be about the same; two enemies with similar health but one having 50% chance to avoid hits and one with 50% damage reduction would be equivalent to each other in the number of attacks needed to defeat them, but both in terms of flavor and actual workaround methods, they could feel very different. That's not to mention the odd game which has armor as a flat damage reduction instead of percentile, which has its own entire delicious box of possibilities to open. Large single damage attacks become much better against armored opponents, where as the flurry attacks with a higher total damage split up into multiple hits are less useful.

Small side note: Hylics 2 has one of my favorite uses of this mechanic in the way of splitting damage. Basically one of the first weak enemies you fight in the game is a "Road Fleem", which has an attack called four slices. It deals four medium strength hits to random party members in a row. The attack is decent and not too special, but what is interesting is how it is used as a fight-as-a-roadblock mechanic. Basically, if you have only one party member, they'll all hit that one individual. This makes advancing past that fight as just Wayne, the starting character, almost impossible as the amount of damage is too high. But if you get a second or third character, the damage is now split up among multiple party members, thus making it more survivable.

Finally, Regeneration or enemies healing each other is a great annoyance in most games, as it undoes your progress without rewarding you any resources to compensate. Obviously this 100% depends on the actual amount of regeneration being granted by the status effect; from making fights unwinnable to a minor annoyance. I think there is a great opportunity for combat depth here though; basically requiring you to coordinate damage on that target instead of relying on status effects, area-of-effect moves, or other forms of damage to deal with them. Instead, you have to focus fire on that one enemy. Interestingly, I can't think of any examples of enemies actually using this mechanic in games as a sort of "focus on this guy OR ignore this guy" even though that seems obvious. Something like a low HP enemy that can be defeated in two or three hits, but regenerates to full Hit-Points every round, meaning when you want to deal with it you have to use one of those stronger but more expensive attacks like Pangorma's Lightning OR you have to focus multiple allies on it, less effective then area of effect and status effect spam. Hylics 2 has a lot of enemies who can heal, but typically it's telegraphed and certain enemies support each other, making target prioritization a big part of that game and very fun, in my opinion.

Side note: This is by no means an exhaustive list. Enemies who support or protect each other can very easily count as a second or even third form of "defense" an enemy could have in a simple target + attack command type of game. The titular example is Fear & Hunger, where attacking the head of an enemy will kill them outright, but is very hard to hit without cutting their legs first.

Progression Mechanics
Progression mechanics also add a large amount of depth. Even simplistic numerical climbing can become a very interesting form of progression, content-gatekeeping, or combat dynamic. Games with smaller numbers gain more "break points" where the differences in your weapons, level-ups, buffs, or other strategies can significantly change the outcome of a battle (ie; you defeat an opponent in just four attacks instead of five, or a character survives a hit that otherwise would have knocked them out, etc.) One underrated form of progression mechanic in traditional JRPG style games is that of actually gaining party members, up the maximum you can have at a single time, as stated above, this gives you more actual actions per turn, something to be given sparingly for sure!

Of course, progression mechanics themselves can be something as simple as a generic XP meter that fills up through fights, or a more experimental system where player power is gained (or lost) through world exploration and from equipment. I feel like there is a very strange "trend" of this being common in RPGMaker games, Hylics and Funger to name a few.

I think the most simple form of this is totally linear progression, which is separated from no progression, by making the game much more tightly balanced and each combat encounter basically being a "puzzle" with limited access to the ability to prepare for a fight, use consumables to make it easier, or cheese it with grinding. Briefly mentioned on this blog before is a little RPGMaker game called BUGGERWORLD which did this wonderfully, as every single fight in that game is a unique encounter with its own art, mechanics, and your characters gaining new skills along with the linear course of the game. With no optional fights, the only method of strategy between fights is consumable items and with such a linear and tightly-focused game it is entirely possible to softlock yourself by not having enough resources to get more healing items. This actually happened to my friend who was playing the game at the same time as me and who saved after the last shop and wasn't able to beat the final boss because of it.

Of course, every RPG lives somewhere between these two worlds. The macro-strategy level where you can just grind or prepare in the overworld to make the battles trivial, and the "puzzle" style game so tightly balanced that spending even one turn sub-optimally means certain death. I find it funny how the possible depth and exploration of this incredibly specific genre of game is so characterized by grinding and spamming auto-attack until you win it's the defining feature of the genre in its traditional format, the oldschool NES & SNES JRPG, and it took a very specific niche indie audience to sort of find the value of it at its core. It's almost like a type of game defined by the idea of bypassing and circumventing the actual "game" part of it, so you can get to the good bit of the character development and story beats that actually progress the "game". But that's a shame, because I think there is still a lot of potential to be found in the "four guys in a line" genre even today, when it has become the stereotype of the old, outdated, unfun, linear, and boring RPGs of days long past. Maybe a bit like D&D itself? Naw, let's not go there.