[OLOG] Combat and Pressure

Special thanks to If Our Lives Be Short for inspiring me to get this written up properly.

Initiative

PCs roll for initiative (d20+level, possibly modified by Virtues). NPCs have static initiative values and don't roll. Initiative counts last for the whole fight unless someone does something to change them.

Actions and Pressure

Under normal circumstances, you get two actions per turn. You cannot usually take the same action twice.

If you are within reach of a creature that wishes you ill, you are under pressure. While under pressure, when you take an action, your turn ends afterwards unless you announce as you take the action (and before making relevant rolls) that you're pressing on.

When you press on, you suffer automatic damage. The die you roll for pressure damage is equal to half of the largest damage die among creatures threatening you - if one of them has multiple attacks, only take the largest. This roll has a minimum result equal to the number of creatures threatening you, which can exceed the normal maximum roll. Flat bonuses to damage rolls don't apply to pressure unless otherwise stated.

Some examples:

• Threatened by two orcs with 1d8 swords: You take 1d4 damage, minimum 2.
• Threatened by a badlands superpredator with a 1d10 bite and two 1d6 claws: You take 1d5 damage.
• Threatened by eight humans with 1d6 knives: You take 8 damage. You probably should not let this happen.

If it matters, pressure damage happens simultaneously with the the action that triggered it.

Some actions have one of the following tags, which affect how they interact with this system.

• Extended actions consume both your actions for the turn. If you're under pressure, you must press on to use an extended action.
• Free actions don't consume an action and do not trigger pressure.
  

List of Combat Actions

Not exhaustive.

• Move. Combat distances in OLOG are mostly abstracted - one move action is enough to move you about 30ft, or one distance band towards or away from a group of enemies.
  
• Attack. Most characters get only one attack per action, but some combat-focused classes can make more, usually with a condition attached. If you get multiple attacks per action, you can break them up with your other action if you like - so you can, for example, make one attack and then move before making your second.
• Defend yourself. +2 to AC until your next turn, or +4 if you're holding a shield.
  
• Cast a spell. Extended action.
  
• Retrieve an item from your pack, or switch one you're holding with one in your pack. This is a free action for the topmost item in your inventory, and an extended action for one in the bottom half of your inventory.
• Strategise. Adjust your initiative count by 1d6 in the direction of your choice. Takes effect next round.
  

[OLOG] The Orc Armoury

Lore TBA, but basically orcs have different weapons from humans, especially melee weapons, and they tend to be rather specialised. Bones are orc currency (not actual bones, domino-shaped coins with holes in them, often braided together on strings for convenience). 1 bone = 1sp for conversion purposes.

Fortes

Most weapons have a forte (F:) listed. If the condition for a weapon's forte is met, roll a d12 in addition to the normal damage die and take whichever result is higher.

Lesser Weapons

1d6 damage, 1 slot. Require one hand.

• Improvised weapons are considered lesser weapons, but do not have a forte, and may require more than one hand depending on their nature.
• Unarmed attacks count as lesser weapons with no forte, and can't deal damage to an alert, steady opponent - you'll need to stun them, knock them down, or catch them unawares to get that damage in. Consider a manoeuvre instead. (More on those in a future post.)
  

There's only one lesser weapon you can actually buy. A decent knife costs 5 bones; paying more will get you a prettier one.

• Knife - Orcish knives are usually big, heavy, and utilitarian. Not balanced for throwing.
  F: Your target is not expecting combat or malice.

One-Handed Weapons

1d8 damage, 1 slot. Require your dominant hand (you can effectively carry a shield or lesser weapon in your off-hand, or leave it free for other purposes). 50 bones each.

1. Arc-Sword - A scimitar with most of its weight concentrated towards the sharply curved centre of the blade.
   F: You moved into engagement with the target this round.
2. Boarding Axe - A favourite of marines - an axe with a sturdy spike set into the back of the shaft.
   F: Your target is not on stable footing.
3. Butchermaul - A wicked axe-mace, with multiple blades and crushing heads to hew, hack, and rend.
   F: Your target has a bestial body plan.
4. Cull-Knife - This huge triangular knife has serrated edges and a reinforced, needle-sharp tip.
   F: You are not under pressure.
5. Mace - Any one of dozens of variations on the theme of "injurious weight on a stick".
   F: Your target is unarmed.
   
6. Shredding Axe - This axe has serrated teeth at its head, spread in multiple directions like barbed wire.
   F: Your target is at half hit points or less.
7. Squaresword - A thick, heavy sword with a hard right angle at the tip and a well-honed chopping edge.
   F: Your target has an orcoid body plan.
8. Straightsword - This sturdy broadsword demonstrates refinement or arrogance, depending on who you ask.
   F: Your target is not engaged with anyone but you.
9. Strife Axe - Ubiquitous in any orc military, this simple axe has a distinctive, slightly forked head.
   F: Your target is wielding a manufactured melee weapon.
10. Wedge Hammer - The head of this short warhammer is set with a wedge to concentrate its crushing strength.
    F: Your target is significantly smaller than you.

Two-Handed Weapons

1d10 damage, 2 slots. Require both hands. 100 bones each.

1. Coroner's Coil - A length of razor-edged chain between two handles, like a deadly skipping rope.
   F: Your target is animate but not alive.
2. Felling Spike - A spear with its head bent at a slight angle; some models have hooked heads.
   F: Your target is mounted.
3. Harvest Sword - Traditionally, this greatsword has seven teeth placed asymmetrically along its twin edges.
   F: Your target has 2HD or less.
   
4. Hawk's Talon - Many variants exist of this hooked fork - the Hawk's Talon has three tines and a ripping spike.
   F: You are flanking your target.
   
5. Meat Hammer - This hammer's broad, spiked head is too heavy to swing in any direction but down.
   F: Your target's movement is restricted.
6. Scour-Axe - Three narrow heads top the shaft of this poleaxe, ideal for punching through hide or metal.
   F: Your target is wearing manufactured armour.
7. Skewer - This barbed harpoon has a weighted head and twisting blades running along its front third.
   F: Your target is at least twice your size.
8. Soulcatcher - A hooked claw on a stick, reputed to be able to drag the soul right out of one's body.
   F: Your target has cast a spell or used a magical ability this combat.
9. Wailer - Takes its name from the awful whistling noise of air passing through the heavy, ventilated axehead.
   F: Your target is not combat-trained.
   
10. War Sun - This polearm's vicious circular blade is spun by a clever system of weights when the weapon is swung.
    F: Your target is unarmoured.

Ranged Weapons

Orcs tend to view ranged combat as unglamorous but necessary - fighting at range isn't craven or dishonourable, but it's strictly a skill where melee combat can sometimes be an art.

• Sling - 1d6 damage, 1 slot. Requires both hands to load, but only your dominant hand to fire. 20' effective range, -2 to hit for each 20' or part thereof beyond that. 10 bones.
  Sling stones are functionally free. They stack up to 10 per slot.
  F: Your target is within 10'.
  
• Bow - 1d8 damage, 1 slot. Requires both hands. 30' effective range, -2 to hit for each 30' or part thereof beyond that. 50 bones.
  Arrows cost 1 bone for a bundle of 5, and can stack up to 20 per slot.
  F: Your target doesn't know where you are.
  
• Crossbow - 1d10 damage, 1 slot. Usually requires both hands, but can be fired (not loaded) with only your dominant hand at a -2 penalty. 30' effective range, -2 to hit for each 30' or part thereof beyond that. Takes an action to reload. 125 bones.
  Quarrels cost 2 bones for a bundle of 5, and can stack up to 10 per slot.
  F: You haven't moved for at least 1 round.
• Clicker Crossbow - 1d10 damage, 1 slot. Usually requires both hands, but can be fired (not loaded) with only your dominant hand at a -2 penalty. 30' effective range, -2 to hit for each 30' or part thereof beyond that. Carries a clip of 5 quarrels, no need to reload between them, but takes 3 consecutive actions to change clips. 200 bones.
  Quarrels cost 3 bones for a clip of 5, and can stack up to 10 (2 clips) per slot.
  F: You fired the clicker at the same target last round.
  
• Javelin - 1d10 damage, stacks up to 3 per slot. Requires your dominant hand to throw. 20' effective range, -2 to hit for each 20' or part thereof beyond that. 10 bones for a bundle of three.
  F: This is your first attack this combat against this target.
  

Armour

Heavy armour is a rarity out in the badlands. Every layer of plate you strap on is one more bundle of supplies you can't carry. Still, some warriors want more protection than agility and luck alone can provide.

• Hide Armour - 2 slots, +2 Defence. 50 bones.
• Plated Coat - 1 slot, +2 Defence, stacks with hide armour. 100 bones.
• War-Plate - 3 slots, +6 Defence. While wearing war-plate, each level of fatigue occupies 2 slots. At least 500 bones, and many settlements don't have the necessary tools to make it.
• Shield - 1 slot. Occupies one hand. No Defence bonus normally, but doubles the bonus you get from taking an action to defend yourself. A readied shield also counts as a lesser weapon (with no forte). 50 bones.

Design Notes

"Less armour, more weapons" is the order of the day. The OLOG Marine has abilities that incentivise switching weapons and having a diversity thereof, so I think it's important that different weapons have different qualities.

This post was heavily inspired by this one from Chris McDowall. I especially liked the idea of weapons saying something about their wielders - an enemy orc with a straightsword should hopefully give off a very different impression from one with a hawk's talon.

I still can't make up my mind about how to treat non-orcish weapons. My instinct is to have a table of which orc weapons they map to, but that feels clunky. Maybe I go all-out and write unique fortes for them, too; that gives you an interesting extra incentive to loot human, elf, goblin, and demon foes.

[OLOG] Them's Fightin' Orcs - the Marine and the Wrestler

Wrote two more classes, two of the three fighter splats: the Marine and the Wrestler.

Italics are for things that are explained in the rules doc outside the class itself.

OLOG Class: Marine

All orcs can fight at least a little, but your training in the art of combat is a cut above the rest - you're a marine, a hardy, versatile protector of the waterways. Your beat is local, and you know your own few hundred miles of canal network like the back of your hand, but you've left it all behind to venture north to the High Badlands. There are threats to the world up there far greater than any pirate cartel.

Marine Virtues

(More on virtues here.)

If your first class template is Marine A, you begin play with one of these virtues at random (roll 1d3). If you have Marine templates, you may choose these virtues as aspirations.

1) Marine’s Cunning
Active: Invoke to reroll an Attack with a different weapon from the last one you Attacked with.
Passive: +1 Initiative.

2) Marine’s Steadiness
Active: Invoke to reroll a Save against any effect that would move you against your will.
Passive: +2 hit points.

3) Marine’s Vigour
Active: Invoke to reroll a Check based on physical exertion.
Passive: +1 inventory slot; this slot can’t hold items, only fatigue and other abstract baggage.

Marine Abilities

Starting equipment: Spear (reach weapon), boarding axe (hand weapon), crossbow with 20 bolts, hide armour, 50’ coil of rope, vial of wakewater (basically smelling salts), flask of canal rum (old military recipe, tastes atrocious, smells even worse).

A: Focus, Arsenal
B: The Best Defence
C: Combined Arms, Hot Streak
D: Implacable

Focus
You have an extra attribute called Focus, which starts at 6 and can’t go below 6. At the end of each combat round, increase it by 1 if you missed with an Attack that round, and decrease it by 1 if you didn’t make any attacks that round.
Whenever you make an Attack roll and the natural result is less than your Focus, increase it to that number before applying modifiers.

Arsenal
Once per combat round, you may swap an item you’re holding with an item in one of your quickdraw slots as a free action unaffected by pressure. (Pressure is OLOG's replacement for attacks of opportunity - basically, if you're within melee range of an opponent, any action that's not pressure-exempt consumes your entire turn unless you're willing to eat some automatic damage.)

The Best Defence
Each time you make a melee Attack, you take 1 less damage from melee Attacks until your next combat turn. The same is true for ranged Attacks.

Combined Arms
You may make an extra Attack per round, which must use a different type of weapon from your first Attack. Unarmed strikes, shield slams, and manoeuvres each count as one type of weapon.

Hot Streak
Each time you score a knockout blow, increase your Focus by 1 immediately.

Implacable
You may accept a point of strain to succeed on any one Save or ignore any one source of damage. You must make the decision before rolling. Once you’ve used this ability, you can’t use it again until you eat lunch or get a night’s rest.

OLOG Class: Wrestler

You cut your teeth in the crucible of combat sports. Orcish wrestling, brutal though it may be, is never fought to the death, but, to be a really good faker, you need to know how to kill and maim for real. You might have retired in honour, disgrace, or obscurity, but the roar of the crowd never really left your ears, and now you stand ready to paint your knuckles with demon blood.

Wrestler Virtues

If your first class template is Wrestler A, you begin play with one of these virtues at random (roll 1d3). If you have Wrestler templates, you may choose these virtues as aspirations.

1) Wrestler’s Grit
Active: Invoke to reroll a damage roll against you that would otherwise cause a Severe Injury.
Passive: +2 Fortitude Save.

2) Wrestler’s Passion
Active: Invoke to reroll a Save during combat against any effect that would force you to stop fighting (paralysis, unconsciousness, compulsions).
Passive: +2 Will Save.

3) Wrestler's Pluck
Active: Invoke to reroll an unarmed Attack or manoeuvre Attack against an enemy with more HD than you have levels.
Passive: +2 Reflex Save.

Wrestler Abilities

Starting equipment: Custom mask (describe it, +1 to Defence and all Saves while worn), 3 vials of gutroot (a potent but taxing stimulant).

A: Brawl, Thick Hide
B: Hearty
C: Beatdown, Kayfabe
D: Showstopper

Brawl
If you have at least one hand free and are not overencumbered, you may make an additional Attack per round, which must be either an unarmed strike or a manoeuvre. Your unarmed attacks deal 1d6 damage if you have advantage, or the usual 1d4 otherwise.

Thick Hide
You gain +2 Defence when unarmoured (your mask does not count as armour). You’re immune to contact hazards unless they’re in contact with you for at least one full round – you could touch a demon’s burning-hot skin with bare knuckles with no ill effects, for instance.

Hearty
You may ignore the first point of strain you suffer each day. If you open a fight with a war cry at the top of your lungs, you may ignore the first 1d4 points of damage you suffer that fight.

Beatdown
You gain another extra Attack per round, with the same conditions as Brawl.

Kayfabe
When you gain this ability, choose Knight or Beast. You gain +2 to all Saves as long as you follow the listed code; if you break it, you lose the bonus permanently. Your allies need not follow your code. When you level up, you may atone and regain a lost bonus, or you may turn, switching to the other code.
Knight: Always accept offers of parley or surrender before combat. Honour your word.
Beast: Never leave a foe alive if you’ve fought them and you have the opportunity to kill them. Never offer parley, though you may accept it if it’s offered to you.

Showstopper
If you hit a single living enemy with three unarmed strikes and/or manoeuvres in the same round, you may incapacitate the target instantly with a flashy, overblown series of moves, no Save allowed. If you’re a Knight, you may choose to knock them out for 1d6 hours or kill them; if you’re a Beast, you kill them. This always triggers a Morale check for any allies of the target that are subject to Morale.

[OLOG] Medic Class and Strain-Limited Healing

Orcs don't really do magical healing - their thaumobiology makes them unsuited to the kind of magical precision it takes, and many look upon it disdainfully as the domain of the gods. Instead, they study mundane medicine, one of a few scientific fields in which they're actually more advanced than humans. Thus, OLOG needs a new framework for healing; inspired by the System Strain mechanic in Worlds Without Number, here is my take, and a Medic class to go with it.

OLOG: Health, Healing, and Injury

First things first: fiction-wise, hit points are not "don't get hit" points, as they are in some other games. They may represent glancing blows, flesh wounds, bruising, mental stress, or all manner of things, but, in OLOG, if you lose hit points, you got hurt.

An orc character begins play with 1d6+4 base hit points, plus possible small modifiers from virtues - even a relatively inexperienced orc can take a hit or two. Each even-numbered level adds an additional 1d6 base hit points; each odd-numbered level allows the character to reroll all their hit dice, reapply modifiers, and keep the new result if it's better. Base hit points can't usually go above 20.

As per usual for GLOG, if you suffer damage that takes you into negative hit points, roll for death and dismemberment. (The DnD table for OLOG will probably be pretty standard, so I'm not including one here.)

Here are some ways to heal.

• Lunch - Takes 1 hour. May benefit once per day, requires a ration. Heals 1d3+1 hit points and refreshes a virtue. Does not cause strain.
  
• Night's Rest - Takes 8 hours. May benefit once per day, requires a ration. Heals 1d3+1 hit points, refreshes all virtues, and clears one point of strain. Does not cause strain.
• First Aid - Takes 10 minutes. May benefit once within the hour after a battle in which you took damage (or an out-of-combat injury), requires medical supplies (1sp each, stack to 3). Heals 1d4 hit points, 1d4-1 if you're applying it to yourself. On a natural 3-4, the supplies are expended.
• Herbal Cocktail - 1 action, purchasable at any orc settlement for 2sp. Heals 1d8-1 hit points. If this isn't your first herbal cocktail of the day, Fortitude Save or suffer nausea (-2 to all d20 rolls for an hour).

Strain

Each time a character receives healing from a source other than lunch or resting, they take one point of strain immediately afterwards, even if they healed for 0 hit points. They take an additional point of strain if the healing they received would take them above their base hit points - if you have 6 hit points remaining vs 8 base, for example, healing any more than 2 hit points will induce extra strain.

A character's current strain is applied as a penalty to each further instance of healing they receive, besides lunch and resting. For instance, if you have two points of strain, a potion that would normally heal 1d6+2 hit points instead heals just 1d6. This can reduce the healing total to zero, or even to a negative number, draining hit points instead of restoring them as the character's overtaxed system rebels against the treatment - the character still takes strain regardless.

Strain dissipates slowly and naturally, one point per night's rest. There are ways of mitigating how much strain a character suffers, but very few ways of clearing it once it's there.

Surgery

Long-term injuries, of the kind inflicted by Death and Dismemberment, can sometimes be healed or mitigated through surgery. Orc surgery is a risky but relatively effective process.

Surgery requires a trained surgeon (1d6x5gp per operation if you're hiring one), a clean, quiet place to operate, surgical tools, anaesthetic, and 1d6 units of medical supplies. The surgeon chooses one of the subject's long-term injuries and conducts an operation that takes 1d3 hours. At the end of that time, the surgeon makes a Check, and the subject makes a Fortitude Save penalised by their current strain. What happens next depends on the results of those two rolls.

If the Check succeeds, the injury is cured. If it fails, the injury isn't cured, and any subsequent surgery attempts on the same one suffer a cumulative -4 penalty to both rolls.

The subject takes 2d4 points of strain regardless of the result of the Save, but, if the Save fails, one of these points is permanent, and will never dissipate.

Further circumstantial notes on surgery:

• Surgery by an untrained person is incredibly dangerous, imposing disadvantage on both rolls.
• Surgery without proper anaesthetic requires the subject to be strapped down, imposes disadvantage on the Save, and causes an extra 1d4 points of strain. A heavy dose of alcohol may be good for morale, but provides no actual benefit.
• Amputation is very reliable - half price if you're hiring a surgeon, and automatic success on the Check. Basic wood-and-ceramic prosthetics cost 1gp each, but aren't fully functional: prosthetic legs impose -2 Movement, and prosthetic arms don't have functional hands, though they do come with a screw-fit harness that can hold a weapon (at -2 to Attack), shield, torch, or similar. Advanced prosthetics with no such penalties are known, but cost at least 100gp and are not widely available.
• Removing demonic mutations isn't usually possible without magical aid.
  

OLOG Class: Medic

Medic Virtues

More on virtues here.

If your first class template is Medic, you begin play with one of these virtues at random (roll 1d3). If you have Medic templates, you may choose these virtues as aspirations.

1. Medic's Acumen
   Active: Invoke to reroll a surgery Check, or a Check to identify or diagnose a disease, poison, or similar malady.
   Passive: +2 Initiative.
   
2. Medic's Resourcefulness
   Active: Invoke to reroll a healing die roll for any healing you personally administer.
   Passive: +1/2 inventory slot.
3. Medic's Tenacity
   Active: Invoke to reroll an Attack against a target that's threatening a downed or vulnerable ally.
   Passive: +2 hit points.
   

Class Abilities

Starting equipment: Dagger, crossbow with 10 bolts, medic satchel (holds 6 units of medical supplies in 1 slot, starts full), surgical tools, flask of ether, flask of medical alcohol, flask of vodka.

A: Patch Up, Surgeon
B: Gentle Hands
C: Anatomist, Bedside Manner
D: Second Opinion

A: Patch Up
When you apply first aid, you only expend medical supplies on a natural roll of 4. You can perform first aid on yourself without penalty.

A: Surgeon
Step down the damage die of any weapon you wield, but increase its critical hit range by one point. Also, you are considered trained in surgery.

B: Gentle Hands
Whenever you roll a natural 1 while conducting first aid, it doesn't induce strain, and you may immediately conduct first aid again on the same subject.

C: Anatomist
If you have advantage on an Attack for any reason, your damage dice explode. (If you roll the maximum on a die, keep that result and roll again, adding to the total until you don't roll the maximum.)

C: Bedside Manner
If you spend 10 minutes tending someone's wounds and talking to them before they bed down for a night's rest, they heal 1 extra hit point from resting and may ignore the first point of strain they suffer the following day. You can do this for up to six people per night; you can't do it to yourself.

D: Second Opinion
If you can reach an ally within a minute of them failing a Save of any type and spend a round tending to them, they may make another Save of the same type. On a success, the effects of the initial failed Save are undone as though it had been successful - damage taken is retroactively halved or negated, compulsions are lifted (though any actions taken in the meantime aren't reversed), mutations dissipate, dead characters are revived, and so on. This induces two points of strain, one of which is permanent if the subject was revived from death.
Once you've used this ability, you can't use it again until you eat lunch or get a night's rest.

Design Notes

OLOG characters are, in absolute terms, tougher than those of some other hacks, but injury stays with them longer, and the constant accumulation of bruises, scratches, and patch-up jobs can take a heavy toll. The standard game loop implies long expeditions thick with potentially dangerous encounters, on which adequate supplies are a real concern and characters will take a serious beating.

I'm walking a difficult line with the Medic. There is a very real risk, in any game with any sort of healer class, that it will become all but mandatory to have one in the party. I'm hoping there are enough ways to heal with items that a canny party doesn't strictly need a Medic, without making them completely obsolete.

Incidentally, if you're wondering where the Medic's starting skills are, those aren't a thing in OLOG. Your class counts as a skill in itself, and you get a random background at character creation, but these don't give you any numerical bonuses, they just let you do things that people with your class and background should be able to do.

[OLOG] By Sheer Virtue (Virtues v3)

"Discourse on virtue, and they pass by in droves."
- Diogenes, 3rd century BC

"I think I need to rework this system again. Let me tell you all about it!"
- Orc Rehab, 2021

I've made two previous attempts at a virtue system here and here. Both have their merits, but I don't think either is what I'm after for OLOG. Just to recap, OLOG is an orc-focused GLOGhack which doesn't have ability scores. Here's a third attempt.

Orc Laws of Glory: Virtues, Version 3

art by Oleg Poluyanov

An orc character is defined by personal virtues, the positive qualities they seek to embody and display in life. A character starts with three virtues, and may gain more as they grow in experience and wisdom.

Each virtue has two components, passive and active. A virtue's passive benefit takes the form of a permanent increase to one of the character's numerical stats. An active benefit allows the virtue to be invoked to reroll a specific kind of roll (including, in some cases, rolls made by others). You can invoke a virtue after seeing the initial die roll, but must take the new roll even if it's worse for you. You can never invoke more than one virtue on the same roll.

Once a virtue has been invoked, it is tapped and can't be invoked again until it's refreshed. Its passive benefit still applies. There are three basic ways to refresh a virtue.

• Eating lunch refreshes one tapped virtue.
• Rolling a natural 1 on any d20 roll - and letting the 1 stand - refreshes one tapped virtue. (OLOG has no critical fumbles, so a natural 1 always fails but isn't any worse than a normal failure.)
  
• A night's rest with a proper meal refreshes all tapped virtues.

Sample Virtues

There will be a whole table of these eventually, with subsections for the traditional virtues of each of the five major orc clans. For now, here are a few proof-of-concept examples.

Acuity
Active: Invoke to reroll a damage roll when you have a height advantage or the element of surprise.
Passive: +1 Ranged Attack.

Audacity
Active: Invoke to reroll an Attack against an enemy at least twice as big as you.
Passive: +1 Melee Attack.

Courage
Active: Invoke to reroll a Save vs. fear, or have an ally within earshot reroll one.
Passive: +2 Will.*

Fervour
Active: Invoke to reroll a melee Attack if you've taken damage since your last turn.
Passive: +1 Melee Attack.

Grace
Active: Invoke to reroll a Check involving full-body coordination or balance.
Passive: +2 Reflex.*

Ingenuity
Active: Invoke to reroll a Check involving precise tool use.
Passive: +1/2 inventory slot. (This can hold one of any item that's normally stackable.)

Resilience
Active: Invoke to have an opponent reroll an Attack against you if you've taken physical damage since your last turn.
Passive: +2 Fortitude.*

Swiftness
Active: Invoke to reroll a Check to do something against the clock.
Passive: +2 Movement.

* OLOG uses the three 3e save types because, for all 3e's sins, I think it's a pretty good classification. Sorry.

Gaining and Replacing Virtues

My current framework has OLOG characters starting with three virtues:

• one rolled randomly on a master virtue table (d66),
• one rolled randomly on a specific subset of the virtue table, depending on their ancestry,
• and one rolled randomly from a small unique group (d3) determined by their class.

You start with a fourth, empty virtue slot, and gain a fifth slot when you reach level 5 (the first level at which you don't gain a template).

At character creation, you also choose an aspiration, a virtue you would like to embody more than you currently do. You do not actually have this virtue yet, and gain none of its benefits. Once per day, when you succeed on a roll that would have allowed you to invoke your aspiration, without invoking any virtues you already have, you can make a mark against your aspiration.

For virtues that affect enemies' rolls, like Resilience, this is triggered when an enemy fails such a roll against you. For virtues that affect non-d20 rolls, like Acuity, a roll counts as a success if it's strictly better than average (4+ on a d6, 8+ on 2d6, etcetera).

When you've made three such marks, you gain the aspiration as a new virtue; if you have no free slots, you gain the new virtue only if you forfeit an existing one. You can choose a new aspiration whenever you fulfil your current one or gain a level.

Example: Izec is a Crowbar, a cunning, resourceful ruffian with an arsenal of tricks, but she longs to be better at the technical side of her vocation. Izec's aspiration is Ingenuity. The first time each day Izec succeeds on a Check involving precise tool use - the type of roll she'd be able to invoke Ingenuity on - she makes a mark next to her aspiration. When she gains her third mark, she gains the virtue of Ingenuity.

You are allowed to choose a virtue you already have as an aspiration, and can have multiple instances of the same virtue if you're willing to spend the slots on them. The passive bonuses stack, and each one is invoked and tapped separately. If you want a character with five instances of Swiftness, faster than the eye can follow but no better than average at anything else, feel free to work towards it.

Design Notes

Many OSR games have an implicit or explicit theme of learning to live with the hand fate deals you, building on it through class choices and smart decisions. If we take this as the default human mindset, then the default orc mindset is more about looking at the hand fate just dealt you, grabbing fate by the lapels, and applying violence and/or shouting until it gives you something that fits better.

The assumed campaign frame in OLOG is kind of an extended rite of passage. There's a demon invasion up in the high badlands, and it's caused all sorts of second- and third-order problems. The Clansmoot has organised a response, and sent out a call to all orcs everywhere to come forth and prove themselves in the crucible of crisis. It's the perfect place to find out who you really are, decide you don't like that person, and kill them, that you may be reborn.

I don't want this process to be easy. The aspiration system is meant to incentivise taking specific kinds of risk in pursuit of an ideal, and I want there to be tension between that and survival instincts. OLOG characters are a bit hardier than characters in many other GLOGhacks, but not by a massive amount; wrong moves can still see them dead. If there weren't real risks involved in chasing your dreams, there wouldn't be much Glory in the Orc Laws of Glory.

[OLOG] Virtue Signalling

Last time on Orc Rehab, I wrote about virtues. This time, I'm taking another swing.

After some discussions on Discord, I realised that, while I still think a system with virtues as its only core stats has legs, my first attempt hewed perhaps too close to the old ability score structure. If each character has just a few virtues from a list of many, the system needs to be built with that in mind rather than trying to make it resemble the ability scores of old.

So, no more numbers. Here's take two.

Orc Laws of Glory: Virtues (and Basic Mechanics)

 

art by Elena Barbieri

There are more orc virtues than may be counted. A virtue is defined as follows:

• A name, which is a single noun.
• A type, which is either (A)ttack, (S)ave, or (C)heck.
• A short phrase detailing when the virtue is primary.

Some examples of virtues:

• Daring (A): Attack an enemy larger than you.
• Acuity (A): Attack from a height advantage or with surprise.
  
• Self-Will (S): Save against the works of the gods.
  
• Diligence (C): Check to complete a task whose main challenge is duration or tedium.
  

Virtues are binary. You either have a virtue or you don't.

A virtue grants a stackable +1 bonus to all rolls of its type. Each (A) virtue grants +1 to Attacks, each (S) virtue +1 to Saves, and each (C) virtue +1 to Checks.

• An Attack is a roll to directly affect or defeat an enemy in a conflict - hitting them with a weapon counts, as do most "combat manoeuvres", but a chess match and a foot race wil also call for Attacks.
• A Save is a roll to avoid or mitigate the effects of a hazard.
• Any other type of action roll (i.e. not damage rolls or rolls on random tables) is a Check.

This will lead to some virtues providing boosts to types of roll that seem odd, like Finesse in a chess match or Diligence while trying to defuse a bomb. This is fine. Orcs interpret their virtues broadly.

When an orc attempts a roll for which they have a primary virtue of the right type, they may also add their level. This bonus doesn't stack. The primary criteria of virtues should be interpreted quite broadly. Daring might apply in social combat, for example, to attacks against a more famous enemy, and Self-Will should apply to saves against the special attacks of divine beings like angels.

Example: Izec is a level 2 orc with the four example virtues listed above. Passively, she gets +2 to Attacks, +1 to Saves, and +1 to Checks. If she makes an attack against a larger enemy, or with height advantage or surprise, she gets an additional +2 bonus thanks to her level, for a total attack bonus of +4. If she attacks a larger enemy and has a height advantage, her attack bonus is still only +4 - she doesn't get to add her level twice.

Failings

Failings are simply virtues inverted. Any virtue may also be a failing, in which case it is a quality in which an orc is notably lacking. Finesse as a failing, for example, would mean a clumsy, bumbling orc.

Failings do not impose a penalty. Rather, if an orc attempts a task for which their Failing is primary, they can't claim any numerical bonuses on their roll. Neither the general bonus from type nor any specific bonus from primary virtues applies, and any class-based bonus also doesn't work.

Example: Yaruv, like Izec, is a level 2 orc with the virtues of Daring and Acuity, but he also has the failing of Vigour (A), whose primary criterion is "Attack for the first time in a conflict". Yaruv encounters an ogre in the badlands and charges it. Normally, Yaruv's attack bonus would be +4 - +2 from his two (A) virtues, and +2 because he's attacking a larger enemy, which is the primary criterion for Daring. However, because he has Vigour as a failing, these bonuses are cancelled, and his first attack against the ogre is made at a +0 bonus.

Design Notes

The details of my still-hypothetical-but-slowly-becoming-more-concrete orc-focused GLOG hack are starting to come together.

The part of my previous post I was least happy with was the fairly constrained virtue list. The whole point of orcish virtues, from a worldbuilding angle, is that they're a huge, wildly diverse set of tools by which orcs define themselves. Having too many virtues in the old system, though, would have been a mess and risked too much overlap and fuzziness about when to use one virtue versus another. I think this version is a bit more defined, a bit more lightweight, and feels more specialised rather than aping ability scores purely for tradition's sake.

One thing notably absent from this post is how you choose virtues and failings, and how you gain them as you advance. I think I'd like it to be a bit more structured than completely random rolling, maybe even a light lifepath character generation system a la Beyond the Wall. In terms of advancement, I don't want characters to pick up too many virtues - their power already increases through the scaling primary bonus. Gaining new virtues might well require swapping out old ones.

How do we feel about this compared to the first post? I'm curious to find out what people prefer.

[OLOG] Orc Virtues

A glance at my URL will tell you this, but, just so we're abundantly clear, I love orcs.

For a good couple of years now, I've been building up a cumulative concept in my head of what an orc is in my home setting. This post isn't going to be about that - I'll save it for another time - but, to summarise, orcs are masters of engineering, stubbornly atheistic, and struggling to reconcile a millennia-old clan structure with the rise of realpolitik.

I've been toying with the idea of a GLOGhack (take a shot) that focuses on orcs. I don't know much about it yet - level of crunch, what the classes will look like, whether there'll be classes at all, etcetera - but one thing I do know is that it'd give me an opportunity to play with stats a little.

Orcs define themselves by virtues, various personal qualities they strive for and aspire to. There's a near-infinite variation in the virtues to which one might swear allegiance, but orcs are realists. They acknowledge that pursuing all virtue is overambitious at best, counterproductive at worst. Instead, most orcs will choose personal portfolios of virtues to uphold and pursue. The degree to which this is a formal part of society varies - some clans and enclaves hold elaborate ceremonies where young orcs swear to uphold their chosen virtues, while for others virtues are a quiet, personal matter and interrogating someone else's is considered rude.

This idea of choosing just a few strengths to focus on struck me as an interesting approach for a game. What if characters varied not just in the values of their stats, but in which stats they did and didn't possess, right from the outset?

So, here are the beginnings of a framework for just that.

art by Billy Christian

Orc Laws of Glory: Ability Virtue Scores

Character Generation

There are ten potential virtues. Here is a very rough table. Many of these have both physical and mental / emotional components. There is overlap - that's kind of the point.

1d10 Orcish Virtues

1. ACU, Acumen - practical intelligence, manual dexterity and fine-motor skills
   
2. DIL, Diligence - caution, perception, concentration
   
3. FOR, Fortitude - toughness both physical and mental
   
4. GRA, Grace - agility, full-body coordination
   
5. MIG, Might - physical brawn and leverage, not just how strong you are but how you use it
   
6. PAS, Passion - inner fire, drive, raw charisma
   
7. PRE, Presence - "passive" social skills, poise, and general impact
   
8. RES, Resolve - emotional and psychic endurance, commitment, willpower
   
9. SAG, Sagacity - abstract intelligence, learning, memory
   
10. WIT, Wit - quick thinking, "active" social skills
    

To generate a new orc, start by rolling five times on the virtue table, noting each result as it comes, including duplicates.

For each unique virtue, roll 3d6, plus an additional d6 for each copy of it you have beyond the first, and take the three highest results. Sum those dice and check the sum against the following table for your virtue modifier.

• 3-5: -3
  
• 6-7: -2
• 8-10: -1
  
• 11-13: +1
  
• 14-16: +2
• 17-18: +3

Erase one virtue of your choice. (This is mandatory.) You're done.

Let's roll up an example character now to demonstrate. We'll give her a good, traditional orc name, like Izec. I roll 6d10 on the table and get Acumen, Grace, Passion, Wit, and Wit again. For each of Acumen, Grace, and Passion, I roll 3d6, and get 8, 11, and 9, respectively. For Wit, I instead roll 4d6 and keep the three highest, and get 14. Then I must choose a virtue to erase - I decide to cut Passion.

Izec's final virtue modifiers are ACU -1, GRA +1, WIT +2 - she's quick of body and mind, but bad at applying her considerable intellect in a structured, practical way. She does not have any of the other virtues on the list. They're just not things that stick out about her.

If your total negative modifiers exceed your total positive modifiers, you may reroll your character.

Virtues in Play

Almost everything in the OLOG that's tied to your stats gives you a choice of two or more virtues to use. Here's how it works.

• If you don't have either listed virtue, you don't apply a modifier.
  
• If you have one of the listed virtues, you must use its virtue modifier.
• If you have more than one listed virtue, use the best modifier.
  

Derived stats, like attack bonuses and save values, each have prescribed sets of virtues that can apply to them. For other types of check, it's probably best to adjudicate on the fly whether or not a particular virtue is applicable (though ideally it should be consistent - thinking about keeping lists of where you've used a virtue in the past, might be too much bookkeeping).

For raw stat checks, each virtue has a derived virtue value of 10 plus twice its modifier - this is the equivalent of a raw ability score in other systems. If you make a virtue check with no applicable virtues, the target defaults to 10.

***

This is all very unformed and early-stage at the moment, and could definitely use refinement, but I think there's potential. More to come, probably.