Tracking wear and tear

[Necrozius]

I'm going to be running a survival game in which part of the game "loop" involves foraging for supplies and materials to help build, craft and maintain the heroes.

I want to keep track of the condition of "fragile" (ie, non-metal) tools and weapons so that the PCs have things to do with their crafting abilities (eg, repairing their gear).

The issue is... this could be very tedious. I'm looking for good options to handle this.

Note: individual weapons will be tracked, but "packs" of tools or crafting items will be abstracted (eg. Bone Digging tools will be worn down together as a whole, not individual pieces).

Please note: do not reply with "DON'T DO THIS". I'll consider this thread shitting.

Some ideas:

1. HP. I'm using Mythras, which already has a armor point / hit point stat for most things. But this seems especially tedious!
2. Usge die. Seems like a contender. Any thoughts?
3. Keep track of failures. In Conan Modiphius it sort of does this. Eg; after X failed checks, the item breaks. One critical is worse.

Any other suggestions? Besides "don't" or "just handwave it", I mean.

Thanks!

 

[Fenris-77]

I think this is a spot where the usage die would really shine. The mechanic that popped into my head while I considering my reply is as follows, and I think I'm going to use in my own OSR project.

1. Equipment doesn't start with a usage die, but may acquire one specifically to represent wear and tear, I think this makes intuitive sense as wear and tear is hard to pin down precisely and one never knows when a frayed rope will break, for example.
2. Equipment can get a Ud in one of two ways, first as a possible consequence of a failed action when appropriate and possibly provided that stressing the equipment was a stated possible consequence.
3. I would probably draw up an end of sessions wear and tear table. At the end of the session each player rolls to see how their equipment has faired - adventuring and life in general can be hard on our stuff. The exact nature of the table is up to you as this is where you get to decide how hard to push that pedal for your game, but basically low rolls mean equipment is stressed and gains a Ud and high rolls mean you fine.
4. You could even use a range of Uds to represent various starting levels of wear with lower rolls starting with lower Uds. Once a bit of kit has a Ud that die is rolled any time that kit is used as part of an action with failed a Ud4 meaning the equipment breaks, possibly with bad consequences. SO the players have hard decisions to make about using or replacing worn kit.

 

[Necrozius]

That's brilliant advice, thanks.

In my Mythras campaign, it would make sense to check the UD at the end of everyday (they're castaways on a tropical island).

Crafting will play a big part, and I like the idea of a material having a slightly higher than normal die type if the character is particularly skilled or got a really good crafting check. Or LOWER, if they messed up.

The main materials that they'll have to work with are:

• wood
• bone (or coral, shell etc.)
• stone
• metal (bronze, eventually, abstracted from acquiring metal which is copper and tin or whatever).

I'd like them to "feel" like they got a substantial upgrade when they switch from wood to bone to stone etc...

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, it would make sense for wood and bone to have smaller Ud compared to stone and metal too. You'll need to decide what's reasonable for repairs as well. Fixing a worn item might be a matter of removing the Ud, stepping it up from the current die, or maybe breaking it completely on a failed roll. That would give the players some impetus to work on upping both their crafting (as you suggest) and repair skills during the game, which seems appropriate for your game.

 

[Necrozius]

One of my players will be very happy to finally be able to use her crafting skills more substantially. I like Mythras a lot, but... some areas felt a bit loose.

 

[JAMUMU]

In the name of Rao, the Calm, the Reasonable, DO NOT DON'T DO THIS!

Now we've got that out the way, as you're going semi-abstract I think I'd stick with the core Mythras mechanic of hit points representing the fragility of various materials, deriving rough estimations from the table in the Mythras book. But i'd flip things around and use the hit points as an indicator of how many uses you get from a given toolkit.

So a rope has three hit points. So you can use your rope three times without risk of failure. After that you might want to check it.

A wooden spade might have six uses and an iron bear-trap ten uses.

After all the uses are used up, it's time to forage for materials and make crafting rolls to restore those hit points (or craft new items)!

 

[Sharrow]

Some ideas:

1. HP. I'm using Mythras, which already has a armor point / hit point stat for most things. But this seems especially tedious!
2. Usge die. Seems like a contender. Any thoughts?
3. Keep track of failures. In Conan Modiphius it sort of does this. Eg; after X failed checks, the item breaks. One critical is worse.

Any other suggestions? Besides "don't" or "just handwave it", I mean.

Thanks!

HP and tracking failures come down to being much the same thing - an toolkit has a row of check boxes (hit points or 'charges' of 'wear value'), and doing certain things uses them up and doing certain other things 'heals' them. The usage die is, if I'm understanding what you mean (the toolkit has a die, and each use requires a roll, and rolling a '1' [for example] degrades it or breaks it) is also much the same, but with random decay.

If you want to have items be subject to a steady decay you'll need some kind of record keeping, so this sort of thing is inevitable. The best you can do is probably to keep the things that you track this for to a minimum, and get everyone into the habit of 'use item, roll for use, mark off a charge'. That'll be easiest if every roll using a tool works that way, so it just becomes part of making a skill check.

 

[Fenris-77]

In the name of Rao, the Calm, the Reasonable, DO NOT DON'T DO THIS!

Now we've got that out the way, as you're going semi-abstract I think I'd stick with the core Mythras mechanic of hit points representing the fragility of various materials, deriving rough estimations from the table in the Mythras book. But i'd flip things around and use the hit points as an indicator of how many uses you get from a given toolkit.

So a rope has three hit points. So you can use your rope three times without risk of failure. After that you might want to check it.

A wooden spade might have six uses and an iron bear-trap ten uses.

After all the uses are used up, it's time to forage for materials and make crafting rolls to restore those hit points (or craft new items)!

That does engage the existing Mythras mechanics, which is a plus. I'm not sure I like the mechanic as much when it's straight uses and there's no guesswork involved. You could certainly layer on a 'worn' mechanic on top of that to handle when things run out of HP though. I don't like it as much as my idea, but I think it would work just fine.

There's also a notion adjacent to verisimilitude where it seems odd that something like a wooden spade would only have six uses, but that's probably something you need to sacrifice for the sake of a usable mechanic.

 

[Necrozius]

Lots of good ideas here.

I wonder if I can make a form with checkboxes in Foundry VTT...

 

[Necrozius]

That does engage the existing Mythras mechanics, which is a plus.

One idea I saw is after every use, roll a damage die against the item's AP/HP. That could also be tracked and crafting checks could "heal" the item during downtime.

Not sure which die to use to "damage" the items though.

 

[Fenris-77]

Going the checkbox route I might make it so that equipment takes a check on a failed roll while using it, not any roll using it. Call it the price of failure.

 

[Fenris-77]

One idea I saw is after every use, roll a damage die against the item's AP/HP. That could also be tracked and crafting checks could "heal" the item during downtime.

Not sure which die to use to "damage" the items though.

You need to decide how often you want equipment to break down, that will inform your decisions about how often to make the checks and what damage die to use.

 

[Sharrow]

That does engage the existing Mythras mechanics, which is a plus. I'm not sure I like the mechanic as much when it's straight uses and there's no guesswork involved. You could certainly layer on a 'worn' mechanic on top of that to handle when things run out of HP though. I don't like it as much as my idea, but I think it would work just fine.

The GURPS mechanic for this is essentially that once something hits 0HP you make a health roll for it on each use and on a failure it finally breaks.

The GDW version of Twilight:2000 had a mechanic called 'wear value' that started at 1 (shiny and new) and went up to 10 (nearly completely worn out), and once something went past '10' it was broken beyond repair, useful only as a (poor) source of parts if you were lucky. Every period of use of the thing you rolled a d10. Roll higher than the wear value, and it's all good. Roll equal or lower, and it potentially breaks (check against the skill of the person who's been maintaining it to avoid breakage - no maintenance, no save). If it breaks, it can be repaired, and after so many actual breakages (10 by default) the wear value steps up by one. Serious abuse of the gear could also step up wear value.

Now, this obviously meant a lot of book-keeping, and was only intended for major pieces of gear. You could use it for a character's gear by lumping it together, and choosing what breaks or needs repair. Or, take something from this and ditch the rest. Or, take nothing, because it's too much bookkeeping.

 

[Bilharzia]

When I was running games on Monster Island, I did something like this and I noticed a couple of things. The scavenging, foraging and crafting part is well received by players especially when it comes to dismantling a giant armoured beetle/dinosaur/strange thing and turning it into armour and/or weapons or equipment. Even more so when it has special properties - I had iridescent beetle chitin giving Influence bonuses (if crafted in the right way), Heavy Moon Dog cuirass giving Stealth bonuses (with magic point costs), insanely heavy Jade weapons (eg. a 9 enc weapon) with higher damage and very high AP/HP. The players loved this stuff.

The degrading or destroying part tends to go down less well but that may be to do with regularity. There are creatures which can destroy armour through acid or other substances and when a favoured special bit of equipment dissolves it did regularly piss off the player, especially if they had scavenged and crafted or got it crafted. Possibly my mistake here was to make destruction unusual enough that it was an annoyance when it happened, whereas if degradation was more regularly checked it would just been seen as part of wear & tear. I'm not sure though, I can't say that tracking equipment getting busted up would not get tedious.

My inclination would be to put more thought and time into the crafting and making it a big deal, open up the possibilities with crafting and materials. I would not necessarily emphasise a tiered system - ie. a Wood -> Bone progression, but instead make different materials do different things, or if they are "just better" have different degrees of availability - you are only going to find golden King Termite armour in the central location of a giant termite nest, and even if you do defeat the King, there's only so much chitin you can salvage, then you have to escape the nest, then you have to make a decision about what qualities do you want to bring out in the crafting.

My sense is a usage die (for equipment, armour and weapons) does not mesh well with Mythras AP/HP - although a useage die would work perfectly fine for supplies and ammo.

In terms of damage, durability and wear, personally I would keep with the AP/HP system but make a regular check at the end of each session, or indeed make the players track it in a fight when relevant. Bear in mind - there already is a system for damaging armour and weapons in Mythras itself - if an attacker chooses the "Damage Weapon" or "Sunder" special effect - that weapon or armour is going to get damaged and sometimes shredded. It can be especially effective against heavily armoured opponents and is often a tactic PCs will use to defeat tough creatures/characters if they have the right weapons, those which have the Sunder trait. You could houserule giving every weapon the Sunder trait if you wanted armour to be more vulnerable. This is more on the GM to choose those SEs against PCs. This can be extremely effective against weapons with low AP/HP, since the weapon could be potentially broken with one strong hit. A high AP will protect the weapon from damage.

These are some of the PC armour sets from my old game, everything they have worn was scavenged and crafted:

Yanchi

Istiin

Cleave

 

[JAMUMU]

That does engage the existing Mythras mechanics, which is a plus. I'm not sure I like the mechanic as much when it's straight uses and there's no guesswork involved. You could certainly layer on a 'worn' mechanic on top of that to handle when things run out of HP though. I don't like it as much as my idea, but I think it would work just fine.

There's also a notion adjacent to verisimilitude where it seems odd that something like a wooden spade would only have six uses, but that's probably something you need to sacrifice for the sake of a usable mechanic.

Yeah, it's semi-abstract and what I'd probably do is levy a -10% penalty for each use past maximum, with a failure resulting in a break. That way it's a bit more wibbly wobbly and you won't get players shaking their heads while sucking air through their teeth and saying "Nah, guv, ain't no point in doing that. It'll take 14 uses and we's only gots two spades between us".

 

[Fenris-77]

In any event I'd be less enthused about this idea applied equally to armour and weapons. I'd probably treat those differently or at least make them more durable than other gear.

 

[Fenris-77]

I would also treat gear that they got stranded with, eapecially steel, very differently. Id want to make it feel very precious. It would be cool if the loss of a steel dagger was an actual tragedy.

 

[JAMUMU]

In any event I'd be less enthused about this idea applied equally to armour and weapons. I'd probably treat those differently or at least make them more durable than other gear.

For perfect rèitearan làn-bhogadh (deep GM immersion) i love the idea of armour and weapons needing to be repaired, but in reality it's a footery idea that benefits no one.

 

[Fenris-77]

For perfect rèitearan làn-bhogadh (deep GM immersion) i love the idea of armour and weapons needing to be repaired, but in reality it's a footery idea that benefits no one.

Maybe in the case of critical fumbles, but that's as far as I'd go, if that.

 

[DornKratz]

I would minimize rolls, specially during combat. You can give each item a number of safe uses based on material, then roll a die to see if it breaks after each use once it reaches zero. Say, roll a d6 and break on anything but a 6.

 

[The Mad Hatter]

For perfect rèitearan làn-bhogadh (deep GM immersion) i love the idea of armour and weapons needing to be repaired, but in reality it's a footery idea that benefits no one.

I agree with you in general. But in this case Necrozius is specifically running a survival type of game, like some videogames that have survival and crafting mechanics.

To answer the thread topic. I would go with either a usage die or the failed checks option, because they seem the most simple and easiest to keep track off.
For stuff like weapons and armor, I would only apply degradation rules after every combat at most.

 

[JAMUMU]

I agree with you in general. But in this case Necrozius is specifically running a survival type of game, like some videogames that have survival and crafting mechanics.

To answer the thread topic. I would go with either a usage die or the failed checks option, because they seem the most simple and easiest to keep track off.

Well most of the discussion has been focused on tool use based on the OPs question and the digression was more along the lines of needing smithery to maintain steel weapons. But thanks for the warning, I'll bow out now.

 

[Fenris-77]

I would minimize rolls, specially during combat. You can give each item a number of safe uses based on material, then roll a die to see if it breaks after each use once it reaches zero. Say, roll a d6 and break on anything but a 6.

Good lord. No one wants to roll this stuff in combat. Except on fumbles. No bueno.

 

[CaoCao]

as I said in another thread I cannot manage complex systems anymore... I always use a very simple pbta hack, and the equipment often breaks when someone rolls 6- while using it (which can be terrible, especially for weapons during combat). then someone can try repairing it, effectively destroying the stuff if another 6- is rolled.
maybe simplistic, but able to simulate what is asked here IMO.

 

[DornKratz]

Good lord. No one wants to roll this stuff in combat. Except on fumbles. No bueno.

Yes, you could have "one use" of armor and weapons be one encounter to keep the action going. Or you could just break on zero.

 

[Necrozius]

It is a Bronze age campaign, and metal weapons and armor won't have that degradation like wood and bone. Other than Sunder special effect or things like acid attacks.

I'm borrowing from Modiphius' Conan Exiles sourcebook. In it, the character scavenge for semi-abstract ingredients like "wood" and "forage". A stone axe is something like 1 x wood, 1 x stone, 1 x forage.

It goes up from there, building crafting tables and such, that "unlock" better builds later.

Killing a Giant Crab will yield lots of "Forage", which is a broad category for organic things like food, hides, tendon string, leaves, sap, bark etc.... Since this particular source is a GIANT CRAB, some of that hard chitin can be used for armor and tools.

Still working it out...

 

[Ravenswing]

Alright, one question: are you out to have realistic degradation rates, or artificially high rates to make this an ongoing vicissitude?

 

[Necrozius]

Alright, one question: are you out to have realistic degradation rates, or artificially high rates to make this an ongoing vicissitude?

Umm.. I don’t know how to answer that.

Basically I want it to feel like a game rather than a simulation of physics.

Wood is less durable than bone for tools, bone doesn’t last as long as stone, but metal is super more durable than stone.

I just want the players to “feel” like something awesome happens when they upgrade to better ingredients, craft and repair their gear and eventually master metals from essentially scratch.

It is Mythras, so some magic will be involved. And giant invertebrates. And dinosaurs.

 

[Necrozius]

Reminder: this isn't a thread to discourage this idea in general, or tell me not to do it. I’m doing it, I just want some advice or sharing of experiences from those who’d done something similar.

If your advice is “no, don’t do that” I’ll be a SAD PANDA.

 

[DornKratz]

It is a Bronze age campaign, and metal weapons and armor won't have that degradation like wood and bone. Other than Sunder special effect or things like acid attacks.

I'm borrowing from Modiphius' Conan Exiles sourcebook. In it, the character scavenge for semi-abstract ingredients like "wood" and "forage". A stone axe is something like 1 x wood, 1 x stone, 1 x forage.

It goes up from there, building crafting tables and such, that "unlock" better builds later.

Maybe abstract it into supplies or resources? An axe needs three units of supplies. The average quality of these supplies determines its durability. And I don't think I would bother with repair rules; by the time one tool breaks, they should be moving on to a higher tier.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think the base level design choices here should involve time spent at table. This includes on the one hand time spent by the players engaging with the mechanics, and on the other the amount of time the PCs have to devote to the associated tasks in-game. If resource management is supposed to be a driving factor in the game then the lack of resources, including time, should put pressure on the players to act. If the players will have all the time they need to gather and craft then there's not much point in mechanizing it since it'll be pretty bland anyway.

 

[Bilharzia]

Reminder: this isn't a thread to discourage this idea in general, or tell me not to do it. I’m doing it, I just want some advice or sharing of experiences from those who’d done something similar.

I did not find the default system in Mythras to be onerous, (ie. tracking damage using AP+HP, when it happened, onto weapons and armour) probably because it only happens when a deliberate attempt is made to damage - ie. sundering and damaging weapon. It's not a common special effect to choose, because an attacker is likely better off choosing an Impale, or a Trip, or choose location instead of damaging the weapon, but in some situations it's a good choice.

Spare a thought for the players of RQG who (per RAW) should track every parry for damage to the parrying weapon or shield ...

I remember we went through a similar discussion about breakage last year when a member on the Mythras discord was writing a Dark Sun conversion for Mythras. It came down to simply using low AP/HP values for weapons, instead of using a new sub system to track things. In a setting where metal is rare, breaking weapons and armour becomes a more viable tactic. Rather than saying "don't do it" I would caution against re-inventing the wheel when you already have transport.

This is the Mythras Dark Sun PDF: (Written by Duke Herb on the server) You might find a few sections useful.

 

[Fenris-77]

Inthink the desired system is supposed to encompass more than just weapons and armour. That said, stepping back from onerous book keeping is a plus for any system.

 

[Bilharzia]

Inthink the desired system is supposed to encompass more than just weapons and armour. That said, stepping back from onerous book keeping is a plus for any system.

Right, but my point was the default system in Mythras for tracking damage is not onerous to begin with.

 

[Fenris-77]

Right, but my point was the default system in Mythras for tracking damage is not onerous to begin with.

If you extend it to every piece of kit I think it might be. Who knows though, I've never tried to use it like that, sonits just a notion rather than the voice of experience.

 

[Bilharzia]

If you extend it to every piece of kit I think it might be. Who knows though, I've never tried to use it like that, sonits just a notion rather than the voice of experience.

That's why it *only* applies to weapons and armour. ... conveniently if you're trying to smash apart a door or a wall, it uses the same mechanics. I had players try that a couple of times in a campaign when it came up.

 

[Fenris-77]

That's why it *only* applies to weapons and armour. ... conveniently if you're trying to smash apart a door or a wall, it uses the same mechanics. I had players try that a couple of times in a campaign when it came up.

Well, the system under discussion is supposed to apply to gear more widely, or least that's my understanding.

 

[Sharrow]

For perfect rèitearan làn-bhogadh (deep GM immersion) i love the idea of armour and weapons needing to be repaired, but in reality it's a footery idea that benefits no one.

Chivalry & Sorcery 2e (not sure about 1e, and it definitely doesn't apply to 3e+) had rules for armour and shield damage that worked in similar ways to the Palladium FRPG ones. Damage that's stopped reduces the item's hit points, and in C&S' case when they run out the amount of damage stopped starts dropping. It made having craftsmen in your entourage very useful (and gave them something to do if PCs), and made paying extra for shields with more hit points something worth considering if you had the money.

It worked okay because they were basically just another hit point track, and C&S already had/has two (Body and Fatigue).

 

[Sharrow]

One thing to consider - when looking at the difference in materials (say 'wood' and 'bone'), one way would be for things crafted in bone to simply have more hit points than those crafted in wood. If this is the case, what materials there are is mainly of importance to the crafter - to the end user the materials are 'colour' as what matters are the stats they give. Like with magic swords in D&D - a lot of players don't give a damn that a particular sword is made of meteoric iron, all they care about is the size of the bonus it has.

Another way is to have them behave quite differently, so being 'wood' vs 'bone' is a fundamental part of the way the item works in the system - say wooden items check for breakage with every day of use, whilst bone ones only check weekly, and stone ones only check on critical failures in skill use, or wooden ones always break of critical failures, bone ones save vs breakage of fumbles, and stone ones just don't care. At this point the material matters a lot more to the end user, while to the crafter it only matters insofar as they can or can't make something out of that material.

The overall effects of each approach might well end up effectively the same, but the feel could be quite different.

 

[Necrozius]

I'd love to speak with someone who's played Modiphius Conan with the Exiles supplement (where I got this idea in the first place).

Google and Reddit give me nothing. No one has played it, apparently HAHA

So far my appoach is leaning towards: weapons, test after each fight, for tools after each day:

1. roll a usage die to see if it's still in working order (harder materials or better crafted items start with a larger die)

2. roll damage against the item (harder materials reduce this with higher AP) potentially reducing its HP; no idea what die to roll though

3. Or just reduce the HP by one automatically, meaning PCs will be frequently repairing things when they can.

Still thinking this through. My players like the usage die idea the most so far.