Prey Species

bonus stinky evil cat I’ve been thinking a bit about why I have enjoyed running Cairn and why I haven’t been enjoying D&D 5e or Lancer recently, and I think I have stumbled upon an answer: Emergent vs Progressive gameplay. There’s lots of writing about this, mostly around videogames, so I’m going to talk about these terms as I understand them, but I’ll also try to include some other writings that I’ve looked at. Emergence is when simple rules interact with complex systems. Think Chess or The Sims. Simple rules, like, “a pawn can move one space forward” or “Sims need to eat” come into contact with a complex system, like a human brain crafting a grand strategy, or a simulation of an entire world.  Progression in games is a newer phenomenon (according to Juul) where there is a series of challenges, and there are strict rules which the player must follow in order to solve them and eventually reach the end. For the most Progressive game, think Mario. Run right, jump, maybe throw a f...

 A Procedural Alternative to the Random Reaction Roll Intro You’re probably doing something like this already if you're rolling classic 2d6 reaction rolls. I’ve always struggled with converting the usual 2d6 table into something playable, often having to fill in the table myself on a per-encounter basis, especially when it seems like often players want to talk their way past encounters. The reaction table doesn't give me enough to go on for the majority of encounters, and so, it's not very helpful. Here are some things I’ve been doing to remedy the reaction rolls, and I’d like to get them down as a proper procedure that I can fall back on when I’m feeling a little lost during an encounter.  I've whittled it down to 3 key stats, that should be pretty easy to insert/substitute into any OSR game.  A Demand (list of examples at the end) Disposition, a stat ranging from 0-5 Patience, a health-bar of sorts, ranging from 0-5 Escalation, 3 distinct steps: sheathed, weapons draw...