CULTIVOS ASOCIADOS A LOS CAFETOS

Battles between powerful foes often result in a great deal of collateral damage. How effective is a manhole cover as a shield? How much damage can a telephone pole deliver before it breaks?

Objects are divided into two main categories: static and operational. Static objects are those that exist without working parts, such as most melee weapons, furniture, buildings, etc. Operational objects are things that have moving parts that work together in some way to accomplish a task. Examples include firearms, vehicles, computers, and other similar objects.

STATIC

OBJECTS

Static objects possess an Armour Rating. This is an amount of damage that the object is capable of stopping. If the object is hit with more damage than this, it suffers damage up to its Armour Rating and any remaining damage passes through it (possibly injuring characters behind it). Though the object is damaged, it still maintains its structure but will require repairs later. If an object suffers repeated damage, roughly 5 to 10 times within a short period of time (GM discretion), it has suffered sufficient damage to break. If the object suffers five times its Armour Rating in damage in one attack, it is completely destroyed — it is beyond repair and must be completely rebuilt or replaced.

OPERATIONAL

OBJECTS

Operational objects have both an Armour Rating and Health Points. If the object suffers more damage than its Armour Rating, the excess damage is deducted from its Health Points. If its Health Points are ever reduced to zero, it ceases to function in its given task; a car will no longer run, a gun will no longer fire, etc. The object is not destroyed — it is simply rendered non-functional. It can be repaired later and returned to normal. Additionally, as with Static objects, if the item suffers five times its Armour Rating in damage in one attack, regardless of how many Health Points it has remaining, it is completely destroyed — it is beyond repair and must be completely rebuilt or replaced.

PENETRATING

(ARMOUR) VS. OBJECTS

When a character uses a Special Attack with the Penetrating (Armour) Ability (page 34), the attack is more likely to destroy an object. Each assignment of Penetrating (Armour) reduces the multiplier required to destroy an object by 1. For example, if a character attacks a steel girder, he or she must inflict over 75 damage (Armour Rating of 15 times 5) to destroy it. If the character had special claws with Penetrating (Armour) assigned three times, however, the character only needs to inflict over 30 damage (Armour Rating of 15 times [5 minus 3 due to three assignments of Penetrating: Armour = 2] = 30).

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83

ARMOUR

RATINGS OF

OBJECTS

The Armour Rating of an object indicates how much damage the object can stop and it is dependent on the material from which the object is made, the size of the object, and how well it is constructed. A hollow, aluminium pole will be far weaker than a solid aluminium pole of the same size. Table 9-6: Static Object Armour Ratings provides rough Armour Ratings for common Static objects. GMs are encouraged to use this chart as a basis when determining the Armour Rating of other objects encountered in their games, adjusting for the material from which the object is made, the thickness of the material, the quality of construction, and other similar factors. The Armour Ratings and Health Points for common operational objects are listed in Tables 9-2: Weapons and 9-3: Vehicles. In most cases, the Health Points of an operational object is equal to 10 plus five times the object’s Armour Rating.

DAMAGE TO

WEAPONS

When a character uses a melee weapon against an armoured foe, there is a risk of the attack’s force breaking the object. The damage from an attack must either be delivered to the target, or (if the target is armoured) delivered to the weapon itself. If the target’s Armour prevents damage equal to five times the weapon’s Armour Rating in one attack, the weapon breaks, snapping under the strain. When a character scores a critical hit (page 69), his or her weapon will not break, regardless of any damage prevented.

BREAKING

ITEMS OF

POWER

Items of Power are treated as if they possess an additional 5 Armour per Level of the Item of Power when determining whether or not they break.

For example, a character with a long sword that is a Level 4 Item of Power attacks a dragon. The character strikes a fantastic blow, delivering 42 damage. The dragon has 45 Armour. Under normal circumstances, a typical long sword, which can inflict a maximum of 8 damage, would break if 40 damage was prevented (5 times it’s Armour Rating of its maximum damage value of 8). Since the character’s sword is an Item of Power, however, it will only break if 140 damage is stopped by an attack (8 Armour Rating + 5 damage per Level of Item of Power = 28; 28 x 5 = 140).

DESTROYING

BUILDINGS

Characters usually gain automatic successes when they target a building in a melee or ranged attack. Most buildings, whether they are mainly comprised of stone, brick, wood, or steel, have 5 Armour for each size ranking. If a building suffers more damage than its Armour rating, it has suffered structural damage; there will be holes in walls and/or floors, powered systems begin to cease working, etc. If the building ever suffers five times its armour rating in damage in one attack, some or all of the building will collapse. For example, a mid-sized office building partially collapses if it suffers 125 damage in one attack. Characters within or adjacent to a collapsing building may suffer damage equal to half the building’s original Health Points total, unless they can reach safety (GM’s discretion). As with normal Static objects, repeated damage may eventually destroy a building (page 82).

Weapons without the Area Effect or Spreading Abilities are much less effective against large structures such as buildings: any damage that penetrates the building’s Armour is halved, representing the attack only damaging a small area of the structure.

BLOWING

UP

WORLDS

Really large and dense objects like an asteroid, moon, or planet has an exceptionally high Armour rating (15 Points for each size ranking) representing the massive thickness of rock or gas that surrounds its core. In order to do any significant damage to the planet itself (rather than just blowing away cities, vegetation, or other surface features) this Armour value must also be penetrated. Only weapons with Area Effect assigned multiple times are useful — all other attacks simply do not affect a large enough section of the object to be noticeable. Table 9-8: Planetoid Armour Ratings shows the armour rating of planetoids. If an attack delivers more damage than this value, the object has suffered damage necessary to blow away its atmosphere, cause massive earthquakes and (if it has oceans) tsunamis, and other similar disasters. If an attack inflicts five times this value in one blast, it will actually destroy the world, blasting it into smaller chunks or an asteroid belt. As with normal Static objects, repeated damage may eventually destroy a planetoid (page 82).

C HAPTER 9: E QUIPMENT Armour Armour Object Rating Object Rating

Bench/Table, Metal 8 Steel Cables 8 Bench/Table, Wood 4 Steel Girder 30 Cement Barrier 30 Stop Sign 6 Door, Wooden 8 Telephone Pole, Metal 20 Door, Vault 50 Telephone Pole, Wood 16 Dumpster, Metal 18 Tree, Giant 40 Furniture, Wood 6 Tree, Large 30 Ladder, Metal 8 Tree, Medium 20 Manhole Cover 24 Tree, Small 10 Melee Weapons Equal to the weapon’s maximum damage,

see Table 9-2: Weapons

Buildings See Table 9-7: Building Armour Ratings Planetary Objects See Table 9-8: Planetoid Armour Ratings

Table 9-6: Static Object Armour Ratings

Type of Building Size Ranking Armour Rating Phone Booth 1 5

Wood Shed 2 10

Three-Bedroom House 3 15 Small Office Building (6 Floors) 4 20 Mid-Sized Office Building (12 Floors) 5 25 Large Office Building (24 Floors) 6 30 Skyscraper (50 Floors) 7 35

Table 9-7: Building Armour Ratings

Size of Object Awkward Size Armour Rating Meteor (100 metre radius) 6 90 Small asteroid (1 km radius) 9 135 Medium asteroid (10 km radius) 13 195 Big asteroid (100 km radius) 16 240 The Moon or Mercury 21 315

Mars 23 345

Earth or Venus 24 360

84

C HAPTER 10: G AME M ASTERING

GAME

MASTERING

INTRODUCTION

The greatest responsibility in a role-playing game is the job of Game Master (or GM). As Game Master, you create the opponents, plots, and situations that challenge the player characters. You take on the roles of all of the other characters in the story, resolve actions using the game rules and adjudicate rules questions that arise during play. This chapter provides brief Game Mastering suggestions and guidelines to help you run dynamic and exciting games of your own.

GAME

MASTERING

BASICS

You, as Game Master, fill many roles, handling all the parts of the game that the players do not. These roles can be broken down into four main areas: creator, actor, narrator, and referee.

C

REATOR

You are responsible for creating the world in which the heroes have adventures, from the supporting characters to history, geography, and current events. It requires great effort, but many game worlds are similar to our own, and so a lot of the setting information already exists.

A

CTOR

You play the roles of the various non-player characters (or NPCs) in the game, including the player characters’ major opponents and allies. Keep the NPCs’ goals and motivations in mind, but also focus on keeping the game fun for everyone.

N

ARRATOR

You also narrate events in the game, describing to the players everything that their characters see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. A good GM provides players with enough descriptive information for them to understand their characters’

S

TRIPPED TO THE

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H

EART OF

T

RI

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TAT

dX

Tri-Stat dX is a flexible and easy-to-learn rules-light RPG system. It is also exceptionally comprehensive, with character creation options that can handle any character you can imagine. But at what point do options move a game from comprehensive to complex?

We believe that Tri-Stat presents a nearly transparent rules system that spotlights the role-playing, rather than the gaming, process. Once you understand the basics of its modular components, the rest falls into place. Players looking for a “fast and loose” system may be overwhelmed by the many pages of options presented, however, without recognizing that this book contains exactly what they are looking for. A sort of “can’t see the forest for the trees” scenario.

The suggestions presented herein outline alternative ways of viewing Tri-Stat dX that may clarify our design focus.

Stats

The process of assigning Stats (Body, Mind, and Soul) to a character (page 8) is both straightforward and intuitive.

Attributes

Attributes present the widest range of options in this book, since they are the basis of character powers. Although each Attribute presents its own description and Level progression, they all follow the same basic pattern: low Levels are weak; high Levels are powerful.

You can summarize the entirety of pages 9-41 by pairing the Attribute names and Level costs listed in Table 3-3: Attributes to the effects summary in the chart below (intermediate and higher Levels can be interpolated as necessary). As the GM, you get to decide what a character can accomplish with “Moderate (Level 4) Mind Control,” “Extreme (Level 8) Speed,” or “Primal (Level 10) Teleportation.” The Character Point cost remains equal to the Level times the cost/Level.

LEVEL2 The Attribute has a minor character or game effect. LEVEL4 The Attribute has a moderate character or game effect. LEVEL6 The Attribute has a major character or game effect. LEVEL8 The Attribute has an extreme character or game effect. LEVEL10 The Attribute has a primal character or game effect.

PMVs

The Power Modifier Values are a useful option to differentiate different characters with the same Attribute, but they are not necessary for play. The Area, Duration, Range, and number of Targets affected by a Attribute are qualitatively subsumed by the Attribute Level; the higher the Level, the more powerful or far-reaching the effect.

As a more specific alternative, you could assign values to the Area, Duration, Range, and Target variables approximating equivalent PMV Ranks given in Table 3-1: Power Modifier Values (page 10). For example, Level 6 Environmental Influence (a major game effect) could affect an Area with a 10 km radius (Area 6) up to 1,000 km away (Range 6). Similarly, Level 10 Healing (a primal game effect) could instantly heal the injuries of 10 million targets (Targets 10) anywhere on the planet (Area 10).

In document UNIVERSIDAD DE EL SALVADOR FACULTAD MULTIDISCIPLINARIA DE OCCIDENTE DEPARTAMENTO DE CIENCIAS JURÍDICAS (página 90-0)