Bullets and shooting ideas for the sake of blogging
As I mentioned in my year in review post1, I really want to reinterpret the Mythic Bastionland general game loop and procedure into a Weird West vibe. The whole thing with the exploration and the linear-but-random nature of the myths feels like it would fit very nicely into the "company wandering through the desert weirderness" thematic. Just like MB has the whole gambits and feats system, I would like to try to implement something similar... Both because I think feats and gambits are a bit too much and also because I would love to have a mechanic related to, well, shooting your gun.
I've been thinking about associating how much ammo you spend when shooting2 with the stat you're rolling. If you're firing once, that's Clarity. If you're following the Mario principle and popping three shots for good measure, that's Vigour. If you're unloading your revolver and hoping something - or everything - dies, that's Spirit.
For those familiar with Mythic Bastionland (which everyone should be by now, it's a banger), you're probably realising the enormous flaw in my plan a.k.a. "you don't roll saves for dealing damage in this game". I don't want to add that back in, since I don't like it, but at the same time relating the Virtues with the way you shoot seems like a thematic hit. My current plan is, if you're shooting while spending ammo in a way that aligns with your highest virtue, roll an additional d12. For the lowest virtue, roll with all dice impaired. I would still need to think if I want to track ammo or if this would purely impact the fiction.
Honestly, that seems a bit rough around the edges, but I need to write this down somewhat coherently so that I can iterate upon it later. I am also desperately trying not to let the blog die, despite how busy life has been recently.
anb
I think Slayers by Gila RPGs has a cool "dice as bullets" thing going on? I need to check that out later.↩