Yet another aging suggestion - Attrition-based
Posted: Mon Apr 14, 2003 3:50 pm
The benefit of an aging system based on attrition is that everything happens on the field. It also means you don't live in fear of something that should be a good thing, like rolling for your skill at the end of the game.
The drawbacks are that when everyone on a team starts getting easier to kill, you have a real chance that low AV teams are going to get hurt harder. Plus you start having to worry about even more modifiers on each and every block depending on diverse AV/niggles/etc on every team. And in general, it still requires some sort of rolling after the game to lose that AV or gain the niggles.
But there is one attrition mechanic which is used by and large at the same rate on every team. And not only that, its probably one of the few rolls in BB that has yet to have any modifers associated with it. So I would like to propose...
Apothecary-based aging
Except for those very lucky days, almost no one gets through a game without having to use their apothecary. And when it does, no matter what, it's always just 2+ and whoever it was is suddenly healed and all better. But what if the needed roll got progressively higher based upon the skill of the player? I'm not sure how severe it should be. Maybe -1 for every 10/20/25 SPPs the player has, so a higher skilled player has less of a chance of being saved by the apothecary.
Maybe something like the apothecary heals on a modified or unmodified 2+, where you get +1 for attempting the heal and -1 for each 20 SPPs the player has, so:
SPPs Apoth roll
0-19 2+
20-39 2+
40-59 3+
60-79 4+
80-99 5+
100+ 6+
Do I have a good fluff reason for why this should happen. Nope. Maybe the skilled players are targetted so people just tend to hit them harder. Maybe they've been in the game for a while so things were already a little loose in there. Maybe they think they're too good for the team doctor and demand to be treated only by their personal physician. Maybe the gods of intercepting would-be fumbles wanted to have another laugh...
The point is, it doesn't require rolling for anything after the game. It doesn't require accounting for numerous AV modifiers and differences for each and every block during the game. It won’t leave you worrying whether 4 players are going to fail their EXP rolls for your next game or why your Saurus and Longbeards are aging just as fast as a Wardancer when he's got 4 skills in the time it took you to get your first casualty. It doesn't require adding any new columns to team sheets. Skill rolls are only pleasant rolls with only positive consequences and things that should be scary, like casualties, encompass the scary part of the game. And the apothecary only ever heals one person in any game so the maximum impact this could have after a game is one person.
I'm sure there are plenty of issues with this. One of course is the fact that Undead/Khemri/Rotters don't have apothecaries. (But hey. Wouldn't it be nice not to have three discussions a day about how someone's Mummy isn't aging, he's just wearing and tearing?) Without any apoth and just a 50% chance of recovering from any injury (for those players who have Regen), those teams probably already have a natural soft cap built in (and if you tweak the winnings table to make it more responsive to TR, an even better cap).
I'm not sure what a good SPP scale would be or whether people think this would be too severe. What if teams could hire 2 or 3 apoths (this would mean younger players and teams have a good chance of staying healthy while still not changing the fact that older players will die off)? Or maybe even simpler, the apoth is allowed to attempt to heal any injury, but once he succeeds, he cannot heal anyone else that day (had to give a story to the press, had to fill out paperwork, took his pay and went home, I dunno). Then you wouldn't have the dilemma of trying to heal a 4-skilled player on a 4+ or saving the apoth for the 2+ 3-skilled player. Maybe instead of cut and dry success/failure, there's a chance the apothecary only manages to reduce the effects by one level (Dead-->SI--->BH)...call it an inaccurate heal. Maybe it could be only on modified rolls so there is no chance of healing someone over 100 SPPs, but 19 SPPs is healed automatically.
Like I said, maybe there are issues with this, but it would seem to be less intrusive in the game, target the problem players, and leave the fun parts of the game fun and the scary parts scary.
The drawbacks are that when everyone on a team starts getting easier to kill, you have a real chance that low AV teams are going to get hurt harder. Plus you start having to worry about even more modifiers on each and every block depending on diverse AV/niggles/etc on every team. And in general, it still requires some sort of rolling after the game to lose that AV or gain the niggles.
But there is one attrition mechanic which is used by and large at the same rate on every team. And not only that, its probably one of the few rolls in BB that has yet to have any modifers associated with it. So I would like to propose...
Apothecary-based aging
Except for those very lucky days, almost no one gets through a game without having to use their apothecary. And when it does, no matter what, it's always just 2+ and whoever it was is suddenly healed and all better. But what if the needed roll got progressively higher based upon the skill of the player? I'm not sure how severe it should be. Maybe -1 for every 10/20/25 SPPs the player has, so a higher skilled player has less of a chance of being saved by the apothecary.
Maybe something like the apothecary heals on a modified or unmodified 2+, where you get +1 for attempting the heal and -1 for each 20 SPPs the player has, so:
SPPs Apoth roll
0-19 2+
20-39 2+
40-59 3+
60-79 4+
80-99 5+
100+ 6+
Do I have a good fluff reason for why this should happen. Nope. Maybe the skilled players are targetted so people just tend to hit them harder. Maybe they've been in the game for a while so things were already a little loose in there. Maybe they think they're too good for the team doctor and demand to be treated only by their personal physician. Maybe the gods of intercepting would-be fumbles wanted to have another laugh...
The point is, it doesn't require rolling for anything after the game. It doesn't require accounting for numerous AV modifiers and differences for each and every block during the game. It won’t leave you worrying whether 4 players are going to fail their EXP rolls for your next game or why your Saurus and Longbeards are aging just as fast as a Wardancer when he's got 4 skills in the time it took you to get your first casualty. It doesn't require adding any new columns to team sheets. Skill rolls are only pleasant rolls with only positive consequences and things that should be scary, like casualties, encompass the scary part of the game. And the apothecary only ever heals one person in any game so the maximum impact this could have after a game is one person.
I'm sure there are plenty of issues with this. One of course is the fact that Undead/Khemri/Rotters don't have apothecaries. (But hey. Wouldn't it be nice not to have three discussions a day about how someone's Mummy isn't aging, he's just wearing and tearing?) Without any apoth and just a 50% chance of recovering from any injury (for those players who have Regen), those teams probably already have a natural soft cap built in (and if you tweak the winnings table to make it more responsive to TR, an even better cap).
I'm not sure what a good SPP scale would be or whether people think this would be too severe. What if teams could hire 2 or 3 apoths (this would mean younger players and teams have a good chance of staying healthy while still not changing the fact that older players will die off)? Or maybe even simpler, the apoth is allowed to attempt to heal any injury, but once he succeeds, he cannot heal anyone else that day (had to give a story to the press, had to fill out paperwork, took his pay and went home, I dunno). Then you wouldn't have the dilemma of trying to heal a 4-skilled player on a 4+ or saving the apoth for the 2+ 3-skilled player. Maybe instead of cut and dry success/failure, there's a chance the apothecary only manages to reduce the effects by one level (Dead-->SI--->BH)...call it an inaccurate heal. Maybe it could be only on modified rolls so there is no chance of healing someone over 100 SPPs, but 19 SPPs is healed automatically.
Like I said, maybe there are issues with this, but it would seem to be less intrusive in the game, target the problem players, and leave the fun parts of the game fun and the scary parts scary.
