Gameplay mechanics (no ontology)

From Mazeworld

Revision as of 16:29, 19 February 2013

This page lists the important gameplay mechanics of Mazeworld. The rules and mechanics are classed by alphabetical order.

Aiming and body parts

The contestant may choose to attack specific body parts of his/her enemy. Depending on the type of enemy, damage on certain body parts might be higher or lower, often with a special effect.
When a player does not specifies a body part attacked, it is by default the upper body, the abdomen, or other applicable. Please check the individual articles of every creature to know what body part it has.

By default, the following values are used:

HEAD group: Head (as a whole), Face…
BODY group: Torso, upper body, lower body…
LIMB group: Arms, legs, shoulders, elbows, wings, tentacles…
EXTREMITY group: Hands, feet, mandibles, claws, tails, horns, inert genitals
WEAK POINT group: Eyes, teeth, protruding fangs, active genitals, antennae, beaks, tongues, life support system of a Failed

• Note 1: The headshot multiplier does not apply if a Blunt-type weapon is used. Refer to the Damage chart for more info on damage types.
• Note 2: The headshot multiplier only apply if the concerned body parts are not protected by protective headgear. It must be noted certain pieces of headgear may also protect the face.
• Note 3: Aiming at the face results in a FT+2 instead of the FT+1 of head in general.
• Note 4: When using a weapon with a Blunt-, Sharp- or Piercing- damage type, eyes and teeth are considered both facial features and weak points. This means that the FT+2 penalty applies, but the 3x damage from weak points also applies. All other damage types disregard the weak point consideration, instead considering it a headshot.

Basic fighting mechanics

Mazeworld requires two kinds of random number generations: regular, d6 dice throws, as well as more complex xdy throws. Most of the RNG matters are hidden to the player during gameplay.

• When a contestant is facing the door(s) inside a room, unless he/she is facing a door leading to a scripted event (see later), every room is assigned a random number, each number corresponding to a room on the complete list of events. The list of events is randomized between every game, as such, it is impossible to correctly "map" which number corresponds to which room between different games.

• Encountering an enemy triggers a 1d6 roll which sets how many instances of that creature will be met and thus, have to be fought. Depending on the strength perk (see Encounters for more details about strength perks), the amount may change from 1 to 5.

• During combat, the GM may roll at its own discretion a 1d100; it is rolled after an intelligent or otherwise sapient creature's Pain levels reaches a high amount (70+%). The purpose of this roll is to determine how the wounded target will react, from being knocked out of the fight early, to a burning wish of retaliating even harder.
  

Depending on the score obtained, the encounter may, from negative to positive: Pass out, quake in fear, become very anxious, resume the fight normally, or explode in anger. If an encounter passes out, it can be looted and robbed from without retaliation, until something wakes it up.

• Fighting is turn-based. Success or failure of the attack of each participant in the fight (contestant, enemy or enemies) is decided on a dice roll. Every fighter is assigned two dice. Contestants can choose where to aim their weapons, or what body part to attack.

• The contestant has by default a first-turn advantage, which means (unless under certain conditions) he/she can always attack first during a fight. This is required to be able to do stealth attacks. Losing the advantage renders stealth impossible as the enemy will always spot the contestant first.

During normal circumstances:

• Scoring 2 leads to a complete failure, leading in the attack backfiring to the attacker in one way or another.
  • Melee weapons will hit the contestant instead of the target or fail in a similar manner
  • Firearms may fail in several different ways, see under for a list of firearm failure types.
  • Explosive ordnance may explode at the contestant. Check the explosives damage chart for more info.

• Scoring between 3 and 5 leads to a failure, leading in the attack simply missing, or in the case of buckshot or flechette ammunition, inflicting very low damage.
• Scoring between 6 and 11 leads to a success, leading in the attack landing as intended, with more or less accuracy on where they hit.
• Scoring a 12 leads to a perfect hit, leading in the attack landing exactly where the player wished, and with exceptional results (a headshot, a weak point being hit, extra damage suffered, etc). It depends on what weapon was used, and on whom.

Certain items or effects may affect those thresholds, and certain encounters may have naturally different thresholds - most of the time, they will be referred to as their Failure threshold, to determinate which values will lead to failing an attack.

Firearm failures

When scoring 2, and thus, a complete failure while using a firearm, depending on the firearm type, one of the following types of failures may occur:

• Most firearms will stovepipe, which results in a spent casing stuck in the ejection port.
  • Resolution: The player's turn ends. The contestant performs a "tap-rack-bang" in order to remove the faulty casing; the weapon is ready to fire next turn.
• Certain, such as shotguns and revolvers, will have dud rounds, in which ammunition simply fails to fire.
  • Resolution: The player may roll another 2d6 immediately in the same turn to attempt attacking once more, though will have 1 less shot than allowed by the weapon action. HOWEVER, if the player rolls another 2, their turn ends immediately.
• For belt-fed machine guns, feeding failures may occur.
  • Resolution: In order to make the weapon ready again, a full reload must be performed; even if it's reloading the same ammo belt; in essence, the failure must be cleared by reloading the belt.
• In even rarer cases, catastrophic failures may occur, in special situations only. These usually destroy the entire weapon, rendering it completely unusable.

Damage and protection systems

Please refer to their articles: Damage chart - Protection chart

Explicit content

Upon request, a player may have more explicit or sensible parts of the game skipped or mellowed down if he/she feels he/she is uncomfortable with having them described. Usually, the player will be prompted if he/she wants everything happening to their contestant described, though an agreement between the player and the game master can be made beforehand.

Explosives

Assuming default Failure Threshold of 5...

If the Failure Threshold is different than 5, then the hit is failed if the score obtained is equal or inferior to the FT. Otherwise the degree of success varies according to the above shown table.

Explosives work in a particular way. In most cases, the following steps are observed:

• 1) The user must choose an intended target to attack with the explosive. An user can choose anything he/she wants as an intended target; even cover, or simply a general area (between enemies).
• 2) The dice roll usually determines the explosive power. Refer to the table above.
• 3) The intended target of an explosive will suffer from the according Pain, but also, if applicable, one of several effects: wounds or severed limbs; the affected body parts being chosen at random with @bodyaim.
• 4) Splash damage will hit everything on the intended target's side, but aside from the intended target itself, victims of splash damage alone will suffer from Pain only. If the intended target defined in 3) was a general area and not a precise target (an enemy or a body part of one), then the damage will be exclusively dealt via splash damage and there will be no risk of limb loss.

• NOTE 1: Fragmentation grenades produce shrapnel upon exploding and affects all encounters affected by splash damage. A command exists for every frag grenade to determine how many shrapnel hits - it must be rolled once for every encounter caught in the blast.
• NOTE 2: FRAG-12 and Explosive arrows work essentially like bullets in regular firearms. There is no splash damage (also known as localized explosion, it only affects the target), and thus no random @bodyaim affected (will affect the body part aimed at), and is considered to be always a direct hit, with the relevant effects on damage and limb loss risks.

• Planted explosives such as C4 charges, as their name suggest, follow special rules concerning their use, which may cause differences in how to attempt setting them off. For more information, read the articles about the concerned weapons.

• It must be noted that failure threshold modifiers work differently with explosives, since the hit is dependent on the total score. For every increased accuracy occurrence, your score +1 is calculated. Likewise, for every decreased accuracy occurrence, your score -1 is calculated.

Other useful ways to use 2d6s

• Melee weapons can be used to hit multiple times in a single turn; up to 2 for Class 5 Long, and up to 3 for Class 5 Short weapons (Does not apply to ranged Class 5 weapons). The player must indicate how many hits he or she will attempt, then roll 2d6 an appropriate amount of times. Similarly to the unarmed combat system, the combo fails at the first failed roll. Example: If the contestant has a FT of 5, attempts to hit 3 times with a melee weapon, and rolls in order: 9, 4, 7. The first hit is successful, the second isn't, and the third does not happen because the 2nd one failed to hit.

• Rolling to take cover. The action has a fixed (NOT influencable) FT 5 and this cannot be influenced. Rolling positively ensures the contestants and his/her possible ally takes cover AND gets first turn of attack; failing the roll has them take cover but their opponent sees them and may attack them.

• Attempting to slip past encounters unnoticed. The action has a fixed (NOT influencable) FT 5 and must be rolled by both the contestant AND his/her ally; if either one fail their own roll, they do not reach the next doors in time and any encounters they tried to avoid will wake up and/or notice them, with appropriate reaction.

• Attempting to pin down/grapple an opponent, depending on what kind of creature the opponent is. It works like an attack; thus its FT is that of the contestant (therefore influencable). If the attack succeeds, the opponent will be pinned down, or grappled, and during their turn, may roll to escape the contestant's grasp (unless the contestant rolled 12, in which case the pinned down encounter is stunned.). If their roll succeeds, they break free. If it fails, they remain pinned down, wasting their turn.

• Attempting to escape during combat. It works like an attack, thus this action's FT is also that of the contestant (therefore influencable), and must be rolled by both the contestant and his/her possible ally. If one of the two fails their roll, the two will be separated; it is entirely possible to abandon an ally that way. Succeeding escape allows the contestant and his/her possible ally to rush to the doors and avoid combat. Failing the escape roll ends immediately the turn, thus caution is advised if the opponent is particularly strong.

Multiple enemies in combat

When fighting a group of opponents, especially so if this group happens to be that of an intelligent type of encounter (Maze Soldier, etc), the situation for the contestant becomes different and fighting may become more tactical.

• Depending on the strength perk of the enemy group, when the enemy's turn comes, the amount of enemies that can attack varies.
  • If the enemies are WEAK-perk, up to 3 enemies from the group may attack during the enemy's turn.
  • If the enemies have no perk, up to 2 enemies from the group may attack during the enemy's turn.
  • For everything else, only one enemy at a time may attack during the enemy's turn, regardless of the group's size.

• If the group is composed of encounters of varying strength perks, the highest perk prevails for this rule.

There may be situations where more than 2 groups of encounters, ON TOP of the contestant and the ally, may be engaged in combat. In that case, before the battle, groups are formed according to affinity, then dice are thrown to determinate the order.

• Example: A lone contestant with no ally enters a room with a youkai and a Soldier about to fight. After making the standard checks, the youkai and Soldier are each put into their own group. The youkai and the Soldier are clear opponents; this is why they each need their turn.
  • A 1d2 is then thrown, 1 representing "youkai group" and 2, "Soldier group", in order to determine which will act first between the two. If the dice roll was to be 2, then the "Soldier group" would get to act first.

Of course, situations where more than 2 such groups are absolutely possible. In order to determinate who goes first, after checking the affinity of every NPC, adapted dice rolls have to be made.

• Example: In a situation involving the contestant, a youkai, a Soldier and a Citizen and all of them were in different groups (totaling 3 non-contestant, non-ally encounter groups), a 1d3 would be thrown to determinate who goes first among the 3 groups other than the contestant's, then a further 1d2 to determinate who goes second among the remaining 2, thus also telling who goes last. And so on, as groups increase.
• With 4 encounter groups, a 1d4 is rolled to determinate who goes first among the 4 groups, then a 1d3 to determinate who is second, then a final 1d2 to determinate who goes third and last.
• And so on with even larger groups.

Recoil system

Please refer to this article: Recoil

Resolution of a turn during combat

Combat may be initiated either by the player, or the GM via external events, turn-based combat begins. When in combat, a series of steps must be respected at every turn to ensure that all the needed information is provided so that turns can be resolved. In order, a specific party's turn is resolved by doing the following:

• Contestant backpack check
• Description of combat actions, rolling the relevant dice
• Calculating damage
• Applying damage
• Repeat for the next party
• When all parties resolved their turns, then a complete turn has been fought ("End of turn 1..." and so on). Repeat the process until the fight ends.

Backpack check

When combat is initiated, two checks are made at the beginning. If the contestant as an ally, and if either suffers from an overloaded backpack. Those factors affect which parties begin during a combat turn. Three parties are generally distinguished; the contestant, the ally, and other encounters.

• Backpack is normal : First-turn advantage, the order is Contestant > Other parties
• Overloaded backpack: Advantage lost, the order is Other parties > Contestant

The same check is performed for allies. Traditionally, allies always act after the contestant is done. making the normal order Contestant > Ally > Other parties

• If the contestant is overloaded but the ally is not, then the order is : Ally > Other parties > Contestant
• If the ally is overloaded but the contestant is not, then the order is: Contestant > Other parties > Ally
• If both contestant and ally are overloaded, then the order is: Other parties > Contestant > Ally

Combat actions

Every party has the possibility to attempt a wide range of actions when their turn comes during combat. The most obvious of which is fighting. Though other actions may be performed, they usually are under their own set of rules (such as running away, using specific items...), end the turn immediately (skipping the turn, swapping weapons from the backpack...), or remain free (talking...)

When a party chooses to fight, certain common rules and information are required. The order of resolution of a combat turn when choosing to attack is:
1) Announce the weapon used (Writing the weapon's name is recommended, although just announcing the Class is acceptable)
2) Announce the use of accessories, if applicable (such as usage of scope mode or an underbarrel accessory; if not specified, assume none is used)
3) Announce the target
4) Announce the target's body part (if none given, assume Torso/Abdomen is aimed at)
5) Announce the fire mode selected, if applicable (if none given and the weapon has more than one, assume lowest mode)
6) Finally, announce the amount of rounds fired / bursts fired / hits attempted, within the limits possible (This defaults to 1 if no number is given.)
7) At last, roll the required dice.

The player then has to write a short, descriptive line respecting the information required by the first six steps (or as many as possible), before moving on to the last seventh step and make the rolls. A roll can be invalidated if the line is incomplete; a correction is then asked, and the player may re-roll.

The description line does not have to be written in an elaborate manner, so long as the required information is conveyed. The following examples are all describing the same action and are all acceptable:

• "AR70/90, Hellhound, Abdomen, Burst mode, 2 bursts"
• "John attacks the hellhound using his AR70/90, firing two bursts at the creature's abdomen."
• "Fire two bursts at the hellhound's chest with the AR70/90"

The following example is also considered acceptable, but is barebones and leads to the default values being used.

• "Jack fires at the hellhound with his AR70/90".

In this example, only the target and the weapon used are known; only steps 1 and 3 have been given information, leaving the attack to be interpreted as semi-auto, one shot, towards the hellhound's chest. While valid, it demonstrates that omission of information may have underwhelming, or undesired results.

In addition to invalidations due to insufficient information (as explained above) and gameplay mechanic impossibility (e.g. trying to fire more shots or bursts per turn than the maximum limit), description lines may also be invalidated due to incapabilities related to the weapon; for example, trying to use a non-existent fire mode, or using an accessory that isn't mounted on the weapon.

• If the contestant attempts to fire more rounds than the weapon has left, then only the remaining shots will be fired, naturally, then the turn ends.
• If the contestant attempts to fire an empty weapon or attachment, then the turn ends after the weapon has been dry-fired. Attempting to fire more shots than the weapon has left, when the weapon has 0 left, is valid, but ends the turn seemingly prematurely.

NOTE: It is impossible to "spray" at multiple targets -at once- even when using full-auto capable weapons, a contestant still has to aim at -a specific target- in particular.

Damage is then calculated according to the information given during combat action description and the results of the dice rolls, while taking in account weapon accessories and Recoil, if applicable. The calculated damage is then applied. Afterwards, the game master makes a description of the results. This process is repeated for all parties engaged in combat, in the defined order (Contestant / Ally / Other parties).

If more than one party is engaged in combat ON TOP of the contestant and the ally, this section explains how multiple parties are ordered.

Scripted events

Every X rooms, a contestant will find a door that will lead him/her to a specific room. In some cases, the numbers overlap, leading to the contestant having to choose between 2, or more rarely, 3 doors.

• Starting from Room 8, every 40 rooms : A mission opportunity will be there.
• Every 35 rooms : Teleporting pad
• Every 60 rooms : MazeSlot machine
• Every 77 rooms : A gun shop
• Every 80 rooms: A hiring bureau
• Every 90 rooms : An archaeologist
• Every 99 rooms : A hospital room
• Every 111 rooms : An engineering workshop
• Every 125 rooms: A bionics workshop
• Every 150 rooms : The Special Stage
• At rooms 190, 225, 340, 435, 470, 510, 575, 710, 825, 855 : A random Kennel

Unplanned situations and creativity

Not every single possible situation can be marked down in the game as a written rule. Players who make use of common sense and creativity may find themselves getting out of situations, or creating certain things that weren't foreseen or planned by the author. Nevertheless, it is the game's policy to not forbid or stop a player from using of creativity to achieve the intended goals, so long as it isn't against the already defined rules.

A well-known example of something that would be impossible: Having more than one ally. While it may seem nonsensical, it is simply a question of balance and is one of the rare evident exceptions.

A few hints and examples of "unplanned" situations that players themselves have made use of and discovered...

• It is possible to break items made of glass, such as the bottle of beer, to obtain the following weapons: the Broken bottle, or several glass shards.
• When metallic objects are destroyed, metal shards may be obtained and used as weapons.
• Wooden objects may break into makeshift sticks, chopsticks, planks or even stakes.
• Chemistry is fun, especially when it involves fire.
• There are more things that can be used and interacted with than what is evident.
• And more...