Gameplay mechanics (no ontology)

From Mazeworld

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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:

Body group Pain multiplier Effects
HEAD 5x damage Failure threshold +1
BODY 1x damage No penalty
LIMB 0.4x damage No penalty
EXTREMITY 0.5x damage Failure threshold +1
WEAK POINT 3x damage Failure threshold +1

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 dubbed the Temerity roll; it is rolled primarily for NPCs (though exceptions can occur). Depending on the situation, if certain events during the fight could be considered strenuous, frightening, or otherwise challenging to the creatures in the fray, the roll is made in an attempt to change their behavior, if it is deemed appropriate.

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.
Furthermore, certain creatures can never be affected by a temerity roll, such as mindless beings (drones, blobs...)

Die roll WEAK Normal STRONG SUPER STRONG
1 2 1 1 1
2 3 1 1 1
3 3 2 1 1
4 4 2 1 1
5 4 3 2 1
6 5 3 2 1
  • 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 participant in the fight must roll a 2d6 when attacking. Contestants can choose where to aim their weapons, or what body part to attack.

During normal circumstances:

Score What happens Effects
12 Perfect hit Attack hits perfectly (headshot, weak point hit, extra damage, etc.)
6 to 11 Hit Attack hits where the contestant aimed at successfully
5 to 3 Miss Attack fails to hit where the contestant aimed at
2 Complete failure Weapon fails completely, jams, backfires, or contestant hits himself/herself
  • 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 may, depending on the victim and the weapon used, cause extra effects (extra damage, additional effects...).

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 OR the amount of shots remaining (either this turn, or real rounds) is 0 or less, 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.

Kill assists

During fights between multiple encounters and/or groups of encounters, sometimes multiple attacks from different people may land on the same target. In this kind of situation, it may be difficult to establish who has truly killed whom. As such, a system of assists exists in order to determine who should be credited with the kill.

If multiple people attack one same target, the amount of damage in % of Pain each attacker has done, is tallied and compared, until the target dies.

  • If one comes out as having done more damage than the others (even by 1%), they are credited with the kill.
  • If there are 2 or more attackers who did the same amount of damage, the kill is credited to those people.
    • Example: Target A has a maximum Pain threshold of 100 and is attacked by Attacker B, C and D. B deals 40% Pain, C deals another 40%, then D finishes A off by dealing 24%. Even though D finished off and essentially killed A, B and C are credited with the kill because they individually dealt more than D.

It must be noted that all damage caused counts, so long as the target was alive before receiving the hit. As such, overkills and all Pain that would make the counter go past the maximum threshold, count. But damage done AFTER the target's death, does not; since the kill will already be credited to at least someone.

A notable exception to the above rules concern allies: their kills are counted towards the contestant's total tally.

Damage and protection systems

Please refer to their articles: Damage chart - Protection chart

Explicit content

At the discretion of the Game Master (RL Game Master, not the characters), scenes of an explicit nature, or depicting scenes and content of a more graphic or intolerable nature, may be toned down, abridged, or skipped. More explanations here: Explicit content

Explosives

Assuming default Failure Threshold of 5...

Score Explosive power Pain multiplier Effects
11 and 12 Direct hit 1x damage If caused Pain is 40+%, severed limbs
8 to 10 Close-hit 0.75x damage If caused Pain is 40+%, severed limbs
6 to 8 Far-hit 0.5x damage May cause wounds
3 to 5 Failed 0x damage Blast misses
2 Critical failure 1x damage If caused Pain is 40+%, the USER may lose limbs

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.

Resolution of a combat turn

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.
Since version 2.5, a brand new turn resolution system has been designed to add a sense of speed and reflexes to combat in MazeWorld: the Initiative system. This system relies on a statistic, the Initiative Score (IS), and is one of the most important stats to look out for during combat. The use of IS is detailed later on.

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...).

Before the first turn

Contestants may perform certain actions as soon as they enter a room, before a potential fight starts proper. Those actions are:

Turn resolution steps

  • 1) The player (you) is asked what they intend to do for this turn.
  • 2) The GM decides what NPCs intend to do as well.
  • 3) The GM announces "Start of Turn x" (x being the turn number).
  • 4) Non-combat actions are invariably resolved before combat actions; anything not involving an attack, such as reloading, swapping spare weapons, using a consumable, etc. (such actions tend to have their own dice to compensate)
  • 5) The Initiative Score (see below) of every creature is compared, then the order of passage is announced.
  • 6) Each participant in the fight resolves its combat actions, in the announced order. Damage calculation steps are made after every attack is resolved, if necessary.
    • NOTE: If the attack involves firearms, Recoil and Failure Threshold are checked.
  • 7) Any relevant end-of-turn effects are applied to ALL concerned creatures; effects such as natural Pain regeneration, periodic damage due to being set on fire, Bleeding rolls, etc.
  • 8) The turn ends, the GM announces "End of Turn x".

Damage calculation steps

Assuming the attack hits...

  • A) Pain is calculated first. Various factors affect the end amount, the most important ones being AC, the victim's Pain sensitivity, the various attack multipliers, and so on.
  • B) Limb damage is calculated next, using LDV and its modifiers.
  • C) Other forms of injuries are checked if needed (for example, a Blunt-type attack can cause fractures, and if needed, applied. Critical successes (rolling 12) may give additional effects.

Initiative system

The Initiative system employs the use of a statistic, the Initiative Score (IS) to determine the order of passage of a creature involved in combat with another. In other words, the IS is a representation of how fast they are; the better the score, the more they'll be first to attack in a turn.

For humans and beings that can use human-usable weapons, the Initiative Score is tied to the weight of the weapon used, with "1" being the fastest, and "Unsp." (Unsparable) being the slowest. For the others, each of their attacks has an attributed IS value instead.

During step 5 of turn resolution, the IS of all attempting a combat action is compared. The lowest IS is the fastest, and the fastest goes first. In case multiple creatures have the same IS, their order of passage is random.

  • EXAMPLE: Three creatures are about to fight. Creature A has IS 9, while Creature B and Creature C have IS 14 each. A will go first during that turn, but B and C, having the same speed, see their order of passage rolled at random. A 1d2 is rolled to determine who is second and who is third (1: B, 2: C). The roll yields 2, C will then be second. The final order of passage is: A > C > B.

How to describe a combat action

When the player is asked what to do, and they wish to make a combat action (an attack) they have to write a short, descriptive line detailing their intention. Whether or not they will succeed depends on the attack roll they will make later in the turn.

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 bare-bones 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.

Remember the following steps

  • 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 (If none is specified, it is assumed none is used), unless the accessory has a passive effect; in which case it is always applied.
  • 3) Announce the intended target
  • 4) Announce the target's body part (if none given, torso is assumed)
  • 5) Announce the fire mode selected or the amount of hits attempted, if applicable (if none given and the weapon has more than one, the lowest possible is assumed)
  • 6) Finally, announce the amount of rounds fired / bursts fired / hits attempted, within the limits possible (If no figure is given, the lowest non-zero amount is assumed)

When the contestant's turn to attack comes, the player makes the attack roll (the 2d6). If the attack is successful, damage is then calculated according to the description of the move, the results of the dice rolls, while taking in account weapon accessories and Recoil, if applicable. The calculated damage is then applied. Afterwards, the GM makes a description of the results.

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.

Recoil system

Please refer to this article: Recoil

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.

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...
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