ANOINTED's premise is that you are an immortal warrior (an Anointed) who has been locked away for years following ages of glory, intrigue, war, and disillusionment. When you emerge, you have no memories, but are called/drawn/etc to return to the side of the (long dead) king to whom all Anointed are beholden by ritual bond.
Hi there! I’ve just released ANOINTED v0.2! This has:
A revamped combat system that removes dice entirely. (You can see a preview of my initial formulation here, I changed a few things from there but that’s the general idea.)
At long last, rules for exploration!
A tutorial region. If I did it right, it should hopefully give you some idea of how to play the game!
Give it a play, let me know what you think. It’s solo-friendly!
I had been thinking about the topic of randomness when writing entries for Regions for ANOINTED23, but Spencer Campbell (GilaRPGs, creator of LUMEN/RUNE/etc) wrote two blogposts (with a third on the way) that got me thinking about it. Specifically, I'm wondering if I could/should just remove dice almost entirely from ANOINTED, my GMless or GM'd/group or solo soulslike game in development.
The Tower of Godfrey map (March)The Village of Plainswall map (April)
Updating has been pretty spotty for reasons of "I wrote basically 150 pages of Game in these two months"! But as I had time to catch up on Month 4 and finalize it, here's my two.
Well, "week" because it's actually for just March 1st through 5th. You know what I mean.
Wednesday, 3/1: This month I'm making The Tower of Godfrey, a prison that was originally built by the Academy to house Godfrey, a rune sorcerer who did something egregious that was lost to time. Over time, it was expanded outward to house other inhabitants. It's going to have two Region clocks: Time, a 12-segment clock that ticks with every action/point movement, and Alert, a 6-segment clock that ticks every time Time rolls over, every time a fight lasts 5+ rounds, or on specific events. Alert mostly raises Dispositions to be nastier and adds more enemies on encounters.
Thursday, 3/2: Drew the map above! 1-2-3 are the main hallway, 10-11-12 are the tower, 4-5-6 are the Warden area, and 7-8-9-13 are the newer cells. This one's going to have two entrances (I'm thinking you get to each depending on the Region you come from: one at the front door and one through a hole in a cell. The 1 -> 4 and 3 -> 10 routes are locked by default: 1 -> 4 is a "soft" one that can be broken down or lockpicked if you don't find a key, while 3 -> 10 needs a Warden's key.
Friday, 3/3: I wrote up the sanctuaries, points 1 and 13.
Point 1: The shoddily-constructed stairs loom before you, pitted with age and weather. A small receiving station is here, with a very small but stately sanctuary and a carefully carved dedication: "Pray for those who reach beyond their grasp. They will find only fleeting rewards in this life, and none in the next."
Point 13: This cell has a sanctuary carved into its wall, worn down by weather let in from the gaping hole leading outside. Carved into the wall, barely visible and actively defaced in a few places, is the dedication: "Pray for those who defy the faith. They will find no reward." There is, however, no trace of the prisoner who escaped from here.
Saturday, 3/4: Did some planning for enemies. Aside from Godfrey himself, I'm going to use:
Existing: Dregs and Apprentices. The former for prisoners, the latter for guards.
Some secondary Academy enforcer-types. (I have some Inscribed folks in core but this is more something orthodox, as inscription is supposed to be taboo.)
Another kind of prisoner.
This might be a good time to introduce a Warden as a midboss.
Sunday, 3/5: Wrote up an Academy Enforcer. They're a melee magic type.
Health 6, PD0, MD2, Poise 3. Kind of like a Spearman but a little more magic-resistant.
Dagger Sigil: Rng 0, Mag 1, Combo 3, Advance 1
Shield Glyph: 1 PD, 3 MD, and 4 Poise until next round. Retreat 1.
Targets sorcery/incantation users first.
Next week (aka this week that's already started) I dive deeper and start filling in (more) points.
I’d been iterating on ANOINTED briefly over the past 6 months or so, and thinking about it more recently because of Dungeon23/ANOINTED23. As such I’ve finally gotten enough done that I’ve released a v0.1.4.
Brief list of changes:
Defenses are all now wildly different.
Armor is now subtractive rather than the previous situation, and all Armor now has a Poise to it.
The old system was fine but created a bunch of weird problems.
This gives it a little more going on than previously.
Shields are now basically “you gain a better PD/MD/Poise while blocking, but drain stamina”.
Dodge’s 4-5 result now lets you reroll but spend another Stamina instead of its previous thing. (Gets that good “mash dodge button” feel to it.)
Parry now only works on a 6. Makes it way more uncertain for what you get.
Stagger is way less bad than it was, now it just strips defenses.
Rebalanced all equipment/spells/enemies based on this (and gave them little outlines so they pop a bit better). They’ll probably need another pass once I do more testing.
You can see all my ANOINTED23 stuff here! I’m making a region per day. (I’m also putting dailies on my discord.)
February 1-5 brought us the start of the Eternal Battlefield of Karus.
Wednesday, 2/1: Point 1, the Sanctuary. I didn't fuck up this time so it's first day. A stone altar sits here, largely untouched with time, with the inscription: "Pray for these warriors, that they may achieve victory over their foes for the cause of righteousness." (This is obviously talking about the eternal battle but also I'm doing a thing. Get back to me at Point 10.)
Thursday, 2/2: Point 2, the southern gate of Camp A. (I'll come up with some names later.) The flank of this camp has not been guarded strongly in quite some time. This has an intro fight: 1 + #Anointed Spearmen/Archers, split half and half. Disposition is Default Aggressive, 5-6 Distracted: as mentioned, it's not very well guarded.
Friday, 2/3: Point 4, Camp A's center. The narrow camp is heavily guarded. A catapult is visible to the north. There's a fight here with 1 + #Anointed Spearmen and 1 + #Anointed Knights: Knights are tough, so this one's pretty rough, especially solo; however, there's an "escape" hex on the far end of the camp. Disposition is Default Defensive, 4-5 Aggressive, 6 Unaware: each Unaware gives you an opportunity to either launch a surprise attack or move up 2 hexes towards that "escape" and ticks the area clock once. (If you make it to the catapult at Point 5, you'll have a better shot at defeating this group.)
Saturday, 2/4: Wrote up a Guard Dog. It's similar to a Dreg but a little stronger and more aggressive at range 1, but similarly frail.
Health 4, no defenses/Poise
Leap: Rng 0, Phys 2, Advance 3, Quick 1
Bite: Rng 0, Phys 2, Advance 1, Combo 2
Savage: Rng 0, Phys 2, Combo 3
Prioritizes least armored.
Sunday, 2/5: Point 3, the far end of Camp A with kennels. It takes 4 ticks to travel to or from here from Point 2, 2 ticks from anywhere else. (Might make this 2 across the board, it's an 8-tick clock so 4 might be a bit much.) 2 Archers + #Anointed guard dogs are here: the dogs are in kennels until they take their turn, which makes it harder to attack them directly.
So far so good! (And I've done two since then, obviously, but we'll get there next week.)
Tweaked Saint Gratien a bit: reduced MD to 1 and Poise to 4, and changed Invocation of Sanctity (spell parry) to Invocation of Vigilance (can't be staggered). This makes him a much more approachable threat as a mage while still being dangerous.
Added Dispositions to Points 5, 6, and 9.
Added more formal descriptions to every point (except 1, which was pretty good).
And on the 28th I decided month 1 is wrapped! Got The Delta Sinkhole, a nasty little swamp region with 9 points, two new enemy types, some nasty ambush stuff, an optional boss, and an NPC! Makes a nice transition area.
Day 22! At the end of this week, it's mostly all sketched out.
Monday, 1/16: Point (7), the shallows. Last week we defined Saint Gratien, the Major Threat of the area. This is where he is, shuffling around mindlessly. He can be attacked here, or potentially bypassed (Default Aggressive, 5-6 Occupied).
Tuesday, 1/17, Point (8), the detritus pile. A mountain of materiel and bodies, piled into the back corner of this area. You can grab a Poleaxe here...however, it's harder to sneak back, because approaching the pile makes it shuffle around - meaning Gratien is more likely to be disturbed (Default Aggressive, 6 Occupied).
