A New Generation in Combat Systems (Series on Crunch – Part IV)
The heart of combat
As we have introduced in our last blogpost, the close combat system of Knights of the Black Lily works differently from nearly all other existing close combat systems in that attacks do not alternate, This is done to faithfully emulate the dynamics of cinematic combat with its sequenced attacks – this time around, we’ll have a closer look at how it works. At the center of the combat system is the Melee Attack Resolution Table, which not only gets referenced constantly in actual play but is also short, intuitive and very easy to memorize – it’s in fact so simple that you and your players will naturally know it effortlessly from the top of your heads after the first one or two sessions of play. Following the general philosophy of Knights of the Black Lily by adding mild complexity in order to greatly adhere more to genre standards, this table is what makes all the various parts of the combat system come together… Read More
After some weeks of intense work on the game (including playtesting to fine-tune the numbers, editing, layout and page design), it has become apparent that we’re going to narrowly miss our goal of releasing the PDF for the Knights of the Black Lily Quickstart Beta rules in time. Instead, we’re aiming for an early Q2 2018 release now, which will probably (but don’t quote us on that) mean: late April 2018.
The Problem: A sometimes overheard complaint about the venerable Call of Cthulhu role-playing game is that the players might collectively fail their test to spot a vital clue. Consequently, the party might get stuck in their investigations indefinitely – which is no fun! The role-playing game Trail of Cthulhu set out to solve the above Call of Cthulhu problem by creating game rules that ensure that so-called core clues can never be missed. This, however, replaces the Call of Cthulhu problem with the Trail of Cthulhu problem: people do like egghunts (that’s why there is an annual, literal egghunt every Easter Sunday), so how do we ensure that there is something at stake for your players in finding the clues and at the same time prevent them from getting stuck indefinitely?
On Challenge-Driven Game Design.
Hey, no updates in a while but it’s been quite a few busy days at the office: the upcoming excerpt chapter on Fortune Points, the metacurrency of Knights of the Black Lily, is currently undergoing editing. That means early access is just a short while away – at least for those who have subscribed to the highest level of our newsletter (“I’m a huge fan”)! The best part: the entire chapter is system independent, so it is ready for Plug & Play into the system of your choice! …