#trihorn

[TFMAY26] Day 8: Animated Furry Movie

Day 8: Animated Furry Movie! Anyone remember Land Before Time? I've been watching an old VHS and it's pretty good! And the trice... the Trihorn is pretty cute.... Wouldn't mind looking more like her.

I fundamentally want in the basic rules:

Devil Dice from Dust Devils or Beast Dice from V:tM, same basic principle, roll better for a cost of possibly doing something monstrously awful.

Adrenaline, Heart Rate from Lacuna. There's an escalation of how well you're doing but it can backfire and give you a heart attack. I've been tying it to the dice. The higher you go the better you roll and the more Bad Dice you get. It makes you roll Devil Dice, not just simply giving you the option.

Target Range, essentially the same as an oracle: results yield Catastrophic No, No And, No, No But, Yes But, Yes, Yes And, Catastrophic Yes.

Damage as Usage Die from Black Hack. The more damage someone takes, the less well they can roll, automatically.

Backgrounds from 13th Age but those actually seem to work fine so far.

But trying to stack all those together keeps getting so messy.

I have had a new thought for Trihorn, since I'm trying to simplify my system ideas.

Instead of multiple interlocking systems, I'm wondering if I can steal a bit from Edge of the Empire / Genesys instead of my preferred systems.

So put the answer on the dice. Have Step Down, Step Up, Yes, No, And, But. Have Yes & No cancel. Have And & But cancel. (much easier with electronic dice than real dice).

So the dice would be:

No dice (4 XP to step up to the d4)

d4 = Step Down & No, No, But, And (2 XP to step up)

d6 = Step Down & No, No, But, But, And, Yes & Step up (can also spend 2 XP to step either direction)

d8 = Step Down & No, No, But, But, And, Yes, Yes, Yes x2 & Step up (can also spend 2 XP to step either direction)

d10 = Step Down & No, No, But, But, And, Yes, Yes, Yes x2, Yes x2, Yes x3 & Step up (can also spend 2 XP to step either direction)

d12 = Step Down & No, No, But, But, And, Yes, Yes, Yes x2, Yes x2, Yes x3, Yes x3, Yes x4 & Step up (can also spend 2 XP to step either direction)

d20 (Devil Dice) = No & No, No, But, But, And, And, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes x2, Yes x2, Yes x2, Yes x3, Yes x3, Yes x3, Yes x4, Yes x4, Yes x4, Yes x5, Yes x5 (can spend 2xp to decrease)

Dice automatically step down to default rating after the situation ends but you have to spend XP to step up. You have to step down a die if you lose a conflict unless you're willing to lock into a Devil Die.

If you roll a total of more than 5 Yesses than you need to win and at least 1 of those was rolled on a Devil Die, you get a Catastrophic Yes.

So we can try say a character with physical rated at 3d8, a Talent for Coordination at 1d8, a Background of Gunslinger rated at 2d8, and a Devil of Killer rated 2. We'll call her Alyssa.

Alyssa gets into a gunfight and rolls 6d8, against some mook who only requires 1 Yes to beat. And because he's a mook we'll just rate him a total of 6d8.

She gets: 1, B, 1, -1, B, 1 (I love excel), which is 2x Yes But. So she hits her mark but reveals her position and where his is weak, so we'll say that she now requires either a Yes And or more than 2+ Yesses to hit the mook again. The mook steps down 2 dice, making him 4d8+2d6.

2nd round she gets: 2&U, -1&D, 1, 1, 2&U, 2&U. So she gets 7 yes and the mook is probably not looking so good but her adrenaline is flowing and Alyssa's Killer Instinct is rising, making her a little unstable. Next turn she'll be rolling 3d10, 2d8, & 1d6. The mook steps down 6 (because Alyssa needed 2 to hit), so he's now 4d6+2d4.

3rd round: B, 1, 1, -1&D, 1, 1&U. We can just swap the d8 down and the d6 up and keep the same rolls for the next turn. She gets 3 Yesses But. We'll say that the But is the Mook hunkering down so And won't count anymore, she has to get 2 Yesses to hit him. We'll say the Mook is down to 4d6, he knows he is in trouble.

4th round: 1, 3&U, B, -1&D, 2&U, B. So Next round, Alyssa is rolling 1d12, 2d10, 1d8, and 2d6. She rolled 5 Yes But, Alyssa's player volunteers that she's looking pretty unstable and will take the But to mean she goes to a Devil Dice instead of a d12, Alyssa's blood is up and she can feel the thrill of the kill coming on. The mook drops to 2d6.

5th round: B, B, 3&U, 1, A, B. And & But cancel. Leaving a single But. And 4 succeseses. Which drops the mook to 1d4. We'll say for the But that the shootout has drawn a crowd, people hiding but watching. Because Alyssa didn't roll any Yesses on the Devil Dice she doesn't HAVE to go overboard, it's up to her player what she wants to do.

6th round: A, A, B, 1, -1&D, B. This is Alyssa not being able to hit a guy who can't even fire back because you can't get a yes on 1d4. So her player decides to have Alyssa surrender to her Devil and roll her rating (2) more Devil Dice: 2, 5. That's not just enough to kill the Mook but enough to force Alyssa's hand, her Devil comes out for all the onlookers to see that at heart, she is a Killer. She walks over to where he is laid out, reloading as she walks, and unloads 12 shots with a big smile and then shout if anyone else wants some.

And looking at that... I wonder if that doesn't just bake the adrenaline in without using the Lacuna Heart rate idea. The dice kind of suggest more aggression without a scale. It also means no one has to consult a target number chart to determine the answer. The downside is slightly more math but excel or some other way of rolling custom dice can do it. So... this seems better on the whole to me.

The downside is that it very decidedly favors yes. While I tend to find yes more interesting than no, this may be a little too much. Maybe more Nos and a clock? But then I'm getting more complicated again and I want LESS complicated, this is already a bit more than I like.

Planusaur (flat lizard)* 

*not a real dinosaur, only exists in the fiction.

A Planusaur is a giant flat backed, amphibious dinosaur ringed with upthrust spikes circling their body, that superficially resembles a turtle. The spikes grow for the Planusaur's entire lifetime, growing from teeny thorns when they hatch to titanic tusks when they are old. Broken spikes will continue to grow but will not totally repair when broken. The average Planusaur is about  45 feet long with relatively stubby heads and tails.

  While Planusaurs keep the spikes their entire lives, they grow and then shed a fringe between the spikes annually.

  Males grow taller fringes as a display, each trying to over tower his competitors. Males always shed their fringes when the mating season ends. Male spikes tend to grow taller and thinner than female spikes.

Females grow thicker fringes, allowing them to carry a significant quantity of water on their back in a giant shallow pool. Female spikes tend to grow thicker and shorter than male spikes. A female that becomes pregnant will keep her fringe for the year, only shedding it the following year. Allowed to follow her instinct, when it is time for her eggs to hatch, she will fill her back bowl with water and then place her eggs in the pool, allowing her young to mature for their first few months in the shallow water on her back.

Young Planusaurs tolerate each other well but, as they age, the species' natural intolerance for their own kind grows. Around the time they are mature enough to fend for themselves their distaste for each other's presence drives them to the edges of their pool and causes them to chew through their mother's fringe, allowing them to escape and go their own way.

  Plaunsaurs are generally placid even with other dinosaurs but they are adept at sensing each other and react strongly. Planusaurs of the same sex will try and fight. If it is mating season they will fight hard to be the only one of their sex in the area. Planusaurs of the opposite sex will tolerate each other out of mating season so long as there are no other Planusaurs in the area. If there are others, the Planusaurs will drive eachother toward a fight in order to make sure the best mate possible is the only mate possible. In mating season, they mate, a lot. Humans have learned that it is possible to safely stick as many as three Planusaurs together: a female and two geldings.  The pair of geldings seem to confuse everyone, leaving all three unsure who is  who and what they should do about it. Planusaurs are on the dumber end of dinosaurs. They won't stand next to each other but they won't charge each other either. Add another Planusaur of any kind and the balance breaks as the Planusaurs seem to find a third evidence that someone must be faking and so they all have to fight. This makes Planusaurs essentially impossible to herd on their own. Most Planusaurs are caught wild as young and then tamed, instead of being bred captive.

  But their large flat backs and carrying capacity can make them indispensable to a drive.

  Breed a female, then take her eggs, and Trihorns (what I’m calling the Cowboys) can have a large movable water supply for their journey. Not enough to water the other dinosaurs (except in dire emergency) but more than enough to make sure all the humans on a drive (even a long one) have all their water needs met, as an adult Planusaur can start a drive carrying around seven thousand gallons of water. Any Planusaur can be a giant baggage car, carrying the drive's needs. Trim off the frill growth on a gelding and you have the space and architecture you need to assemble and carry the new "portable" Marconi radio wave equipment, allowing a drive to send and receive messages. Might not allow for rescue but decent burials and revenge are nothing to sneeze at. Neither is the new posthumous bounty reward if a Trihorn will have survivors.

  Some young'n Trihorns have taken to calling the radio equipped Planusaurs “Marconisaurs” in honor of the inventor. The more superstitious are trying out Echosaur on account of the odd voices that reverberate out of the equipment as if coming across a great divide. The one Trihorn who went for “Mediumsaur,” now lives in shame as a hermit somewheres out in the north of the Long Wild. As he took his “Mediumsaur” with him, there is a reward for finding him.