I had an idea for an OSR game
last night, but I suspect some people would really hate it. It might hit that
terrible sweet spot of too mechanical for indie fans and too non-violent for
old school fans. For now, I'm calling the game Motley.
Imagine a fairly typical dungeon
crawl system where hit points represent not just how alive something is, but
how able to fight it is. So a specially trained character could reduce hit
points with a joke or a distracting magic trick.
Now imagine that in the Equipment
section, next to the weapons table and armor table, there are tables for
comedy, friendship, and distraction. A character with the right proficiency can
use exotic friendship techniques to convince monsters not to fight.
Depending on your setting, you
may scrap traditional weapons completely, or you may use them alongside these
non-violent techniques. Perhaps your elf dual wields fart jokes and a rapier.
Perhaps your dwarf uses long-stemmed roses as a ranged friendship attack and an
axe as melee combat attack. Perhaps your orc is a firespinner, who can awe
someone right before kicking them in the shins.
I imagine that this system would
deserve its own classes, like jester, performer, and bon vivant. Each would
grant certain proficiencies and special abilities. I might have to
retroactively write fighter, wizard, thief, and cleric classes just to clarify
what abilities they have.
Would monsters use combat or
would they try to use these abilities, too? Is the dragon trying to kill you or
befriend you? What happen if it succeeds? What happens if it befriends half the
party? All of these issues would have to be worked out. My default would be to
have most monsters trying to harm the PCs, at least until the GM figures out
how to run comedy monsters, etc.
What do you think? Do you hate
this idea? I'm particularly interested in hearing from OSR fans on this one.
What do I need to add for the game to work?
