WIP - Scrimshaw, hunting rules

[Teardrop World]

Actually working on a rule project, set in Lost Worlds:
A thirty day hunting campaign, for a lone hunter with a knife. Kill a beast to have ingredient to craft traps, poisons, weapons - and welcome further hunters to help. Walk stealthy to avoid being noticed by animals, make them flee in direction of your traps. Chase them, fight them. But beware of the Stamina, as each run and fight push tears you down.

Each time a beat is killed or the hunter has his Stamina low, a day is ending - and return to the base camp. Spend a few days here to craft traps or hunting tower and place them on the terrain.  Don't be caught in the wind, hunters don't shave and stinks! The animals could flee.
Upgrade the base camp to be able to cook poisons, add tents to get health point back (spending a day in the camp). Place appeal near a hunting tower or traps.

Use of RPG dice for the weapons/traps/tests.
Hunters will be all kind of Tribals or cavemen, with rock knife, sarbacans, rock axe. Mostly NorthStar tribals.
Animals will be in categories, from small game to monsters. Predators can hunt the hunter.
I have Foundry african fauna in my lead pile, already undercoated since years. Add some plastic or metal dino, small deers and foxes.

The idea came from a video game, or precisely mods for Skyrim. Bored of virtual world, why not have the same flavour in real 3D?
I hope to make the first test this week.

Cheers

Full article here: https://teardropworlds.wordpress.com/2020/07/28/from-pc-to-tabletop/

[Teardrop World]

Combat rules advancing, animal behavior in work. Trying to keep the final rule under ten pages.
Worked on a terrain feature: A mud area. Animals can be bogged down in mud, and become easy targets.

My recipe for a beautiful and realist mud:

• Build a pond, fully detailed, with fishes, frogs and plants
• Paint it masterclass like, and varnish
• Pour artificial water, now the fishes are partly underwater!
• Look in the dictionnary for all the most horrible swearing words on earth: the artificial water cracked! Tears and screams
• Paint it brown. It's now a mud area with dead fishes.

Illustrated with some Incas hunting hunted by lizards

[PhilB]

Great story about how to turn disaster into success.

[Teardrop World]

Speed painted a few Tribesmen today. From left to right: the knifeman - the base hunter, has a better movement. The axeman, stronger but normal movement. The spearman, can attack from a short distance to avoid retaliation.  The pointy stick launcher, not a lot of damages, but avoid a direct contact. The blowgunner, no damage - only poison, it drain Life and Stamina each game turn.

The movements in inch, for men and beasts will be based on dice: a D6 for walking mens, and a D4 for stealthy men. Knifeman will have a +2 bonus.

Combat will be opposed rolls, the attacker making damage with the positive difference of result, weapon mod added. Few damage, but each point of damage drains the life and stamina. Animals can not move once they lost all their stamina, but they can fight. Hunters have few life points. It's the struggle for life, a simple wolf is a deadly opponent. When a hunter come in base contact with an animal, the beast make an Instinct test: if successful, the beast flee before the hunter's attack. Empty stomach is common in the base camp.

[Teardrop World]

The following is on my blog, with nearly nothing more to read, except it is in "Le Français" written too.

The rule will use leveled list for the animals: only one hunter mean small preys and predators, two or three hunters have bigger encounters, when the band have seven members – time for the big boss (monsters)

The game mechanic rely on the use of Stamina points: the higher - the most animals fight or flee. Everybody is a low-life - each fight can be deadly. It's easier to exhaust an animal so he can't fight back or escape.
Low chance to come in base contact at first: as soon in contact, the animal can react and attack before you, or flee before you realise.

Hunters and beasts have a small amount of life and can be easily killed. Hunters have ten points of stamina, small animals less. Big beasts can have twenty or thirty points. Stamina points are used to flee and chase. But when stamina is empty, the figure can no longer walk or run, but only fight.

You can walk stealthy and stay unnoticed, but beware of the wind direction! The animal will flee your unsupportable odor.

The test terrain, with a gallery of charming inhabitant:

 

A lone hunter walk stealthy (D4 move) to surprise a deer. Unfortunately, the hunter don’t know how to use soap, and stinks. The wind blow in the deer direction. The deer make a Stink test, and win (the result equal or below his stamina). He gonna flee!



The movement dice of the deer give him five inch of move, but doubled as it’s an escape. He can move for ten inch! The cost of stamina is the dice result. The deer have ten points and loose five when fleeing.



The hunter have a D6 of normal move, with a +2 modifier because he is lightly armed. Not enough to go after the deer. He choose to chase the deer (before rolling the dice). But what a baaad result! One inch, +2. Three inch of move, doubled because of the chase. As the hunter run six inch, is stamina is lowered by three points.



The hunter enter in the line of sight of a small predator. This one make an Instinct test, but a low stamina give no reaction. The deer change direction and go near a mud pond. The hunter have a good movement roll and catch the deer. The deer fail his Instinct test and have no reaction. The hunter can fight! His attack obtain three more points than the deer’s defense. The deer loose three life points and three stamina points. The deer now have now only three stamina points remaining.



Preys flee after a fight, the deer have four inch of move, doubled as it is an escape. Fleeing away from the hunter, the deer must cross the mud pond – where movement cost double. The deer can only run a total of four inch and lose four stamina point. With no stamina left, he can no longer move after this turn.



To be sure to quickly catch the deer, the hunter go for a run, and get a five (doubled). He can run ten inches, largely enough. But this push his stamina to zero points.



After the run, the deer is too tired and cannot have any reaction. The hunter is tired too, and can barely kill the deer. Exhausted (without stamina), the hunter must go back to the base camp – end of the journey. He have enough material now to craft a trap or a weapon.



That's all

[AndrewBeasley]

 


The clunk you heard was me fainting - I've been in less fantastic looking scenic spots in the real world!!!

[Grumpy Gnome]

I am familiar with some of your Skyrim inspiration and your gaming ideas are interesting but I have to say, that photo of your table layout is absolutely stunning.

[Teardrop World]

Tried to continue testing, but draft notes have become so messy - plenty of striked words and phrase, parts of rules merged in other part. A clean version is to be made on the PC before futher testing.

It was intended to be a small and light rule, beer & pretzel kind. It will be a lot of work to achieve this.
What have I done?