#double die

Today we will be talking about Whimsy Points, Magic and Armor. First off, Whimsy Points

Whimsy points have a variety of uses. Their primary use is fudging dice rolls. You can spend 1 Whimsy whenever you want to add +2 to a roll, 2 Whimsy to add +3 or 3 Whimsy to add +4; these are in addition to any other bonuses. You can also use Whimsy points to activate the abilities of archetype, specializations, and even the abilities of certain items. The frequency of use and Whimsy cost of these abilities vary from ability to ability. You can gain Whimsy by rolling doubles (1 Whimsy), or by roleplaying well or playing creatively or cleverly, at the GM’s discretion.

Magic in Little Folk and Double Die in general vary greatly from most other rpgs. In Double Die, you usually have one type of magic for each Stat, and you decide what types of magic you can use at character creations (often between zero and two types of magic). Unlike other skills, magic is assumed to be a d0 unless otherwise stated, meaning you have to be trained in it to at least a d4 in order to use it.

Furthermore, players come up with spells, saying what they want to do rather than referring to a spell list. The GM then tells them if that spell effect is within the domain of a magic type they know. If not, the player and the GM talk it out. Once they have both reached a satisfactory conclusion the GM decides on the difficulty of the spell based on the table below. The GM rolls dice for spell difficulty vs. the player’s magic roll when the player rolls against the environment or a willing target. The GM adds bonus to the targets roll, (an appropriate defense roll vs. the player’s magic roll), when the Player tries to cast a spell against an unwilling target. If a player succeeds on a spell roll, the spell succeeds. If a player fails a spell roll, the spell fizzles, causing the Player a small negative effect. In addition, they cannot cast spells of that type of magic for the rest of the scene.

Spell Difficulty, Bonus to Targets Roll, Example Spell (Environment), Example Spell (Vs)

2d4, +0, Create Light, Freeze with a Touch

2d6, +1, Ventriloquism, Damaging a target with moonbeams

2d8, +2, Calling a Pillbug, Breathing fire

2d10, +3, Creating a short ranged teleportation portal, Invoking fear in a group of targets

2d12, +4, Walking on water by freezing it, Trapping Someone in Stone

2d20, +8, Stopping time for a short period, Sending out a Fae sized stormcloud to attack people

I’ll go into each form of magic in detail separately, but for now here’s a teaser.

Name: Winter Magic

Associated Time(s): Winter, Crescent Moon

Concept(s): Protection, Artifice, The Hearth, Magic of Magic

Emotion(s): Sadness and Comfort

Element(s): Water and Ice

Warding Metal: Lead

Name: Summer Magic

Associated Time(s): Summer, New Moon

Concept(s): The Body/Transmutation, Brute Force

Emotion(s): Anger

Element(s): Fire and Light

Warding Metal: Copper

Name: Spring Magic

Associated Time(s): Spring, Gibbous Moon

Concept(s): Nature, Life, Plants and Animals

Emotion(s): Joy

Element(s): Earth

Warding Metal: Tin

Name: Fall Magic

Associated Time(s): Fall, Full Moon

Concept(s): The Mind, Illusion/Enchantment, The Spirit World and Death

Emotion(s): Fear

Element(s): Air

Warding Metal: Silver

Name: Courtly Magic

Associated Time(s): Eclipses, Solstices and Half Moons

Concept(s): Mystery, Court, Space and Time

Emotion(s): Love, Glory

Element(s): Moonlight

Warding Metal: Iron

Notice the warding metals. In Little Folk each type of magic has a warding metal: magic cannot be cast on it’s respective warding metal, and players suffer a penalty to using magic when near its warding metal. This can range from a simple -2 when close by a warding metal, to being completely unable to use it when in contact with that metal.

Armor also works differently than most other systems. Armor has three qualities: its armor die (d4-d12), its durability and what it can block. When a target is attacked by a type of damage it’s armor can block, the target rolls their armor die. If they roll a 4 or above, the attack is ignored and the armor’s durability is reduced by 1. If they roll below a 4, the armor does nothing. When an armor reaches zero durability, it does nothing for the rest of the scene. Armor regain all durability at the start of a scene, unless otherwise stated. Players cannot wear armor with an armor die above their armor training skill.

That’s all for now. Next time I’ll start showing off an Archetype or Kith.

Sorry I’ve been absent so much, as I’ve been busy with school. I don’t have anything together for Little Folk today, but I’ve been reading through Maze of the Blue Medusa (an excellent module, look it up). As a result, I’ve become interested in doing OSR style dungeon crawls in Double Die. Here is a quick one I came up with:

For Stats and Skills, we are trying to emphasize player skill over character skill, and lower the overall power level. In addition, for this format, species and archetype are one and the same. Thus, when we put together the stats and skills; we have this:

Strength (Str)

Endurance: For surviving attacks to the body. Also decides base health.

Brawl: Competence in melee combat.

Brawn: Feats of brute strength.

Armor Training: Size of armor one can wear.

Agility (Agi)

Dodge: Measure of reflexes. Allows for the dodging of most attacks.

Ranged: Competence in ranged combat.

Sneaking: Ability to move undetected.

Acrobatics: Feats of raw agility.

Spirit (Spi)

Willpower: For surpassing tests of will and attacks to the mind and soul. Also decides base health.

Magic: Ability to cast magic.

Luck: How much one is favored by luck. Relates to loot and gambling.

Notice: Ability to perceive your environment. Used only when talking it through won’t do.

Intelligence (Int)

Religion: Knowledge of Religion

Obscura: Knowledge of Obscure Lore

Nature: Knowledge of Natural Lore

Engineering: Ability to use, manipulate, and understand complex devices and constructs, whether mechanical or otherwise.

Legend Points, or LP, work like other Double Die settings: you can spend 1 LP whenever you want to add +2 to a roll, 2 LP to add +3 and 3 LP to add +4; this is in addition to any other bonuses.

However, there is another use for LP: activating abilities from your Archetype also cost Legend Points. You do not come up with spells on the fly as you do in other Double Die settings; instead, you learn them by finding scrolls in treasure hoards, or by selecting a number of spells from a pool determined by your level (i.e a level 2 character can access level 2 spells and below). You can learn one spell per level; therefore it is impossible to learn all of the spells available at a given level. When you want to use magic, you roll your magic vs. a difficulty assigned by the GM. If you succeed the spell is cast, and if you fail the spell fizzles, causing a bad thing to happen to you and preventing you from casting magic for the rest of the scene. For opposed spells like a magic missile (magic vs. dodge), you subtract a certain amount from your roll (ranging from -0 to -6) to simulate the difficulty of the cast. Notice that the -1, -5 and -6 break the “only 2 through 4 rule” of modifiers mentioned in the first article, but it’s important to do this for really weak or really strong spells.

Stats are rolled one by one, down the line. You do this by rolling a d4 for each, with 1 being a d4, 2 a d6, 3 a d8 and 4 a d10. Then you choose your Archetype, either randomly from a table or by choice. Finally, you distribute skills. You do this by taking your die size (e.g. 2 for a d6) for each stat. That is how many dice upgrades you have to distribute amongst your skills in that stat, up to d10 in a single skill. For example, if I had a a d10 in Strength, I would have 4 dice upgrades available. I could upgrade my Brawl to a d8 (2 upgrades), and Brawn and Endurance to a d6 (1 upgrade each). Keep in mind that each skill starts at d4 except for Magic. Magic is a d0 and thus cannot be used unless your Archetype says you can use it, giving it a bump to a d4.

Going back to Archetypes; they determine a few things: your base health, (which is Archetype health + number of dice upgrades past d0 for Endurance and Willpower), when you gain max health, when and what type of stat and skill increases you get as you level, and when you gain new abilities and spells.

I’ll probably be rolling out some material for this version of 0e Fantasy, along with more Little Folk stuff. Until then, have a happy October!