Rewriting Basic Play for CN: Cribbage Part I

One of the Game Fu #7 Entries is Leftovers (pdf link that seems to be broken, try to right button click save as).

I give mad props to the writing style and general layout. Here is a bit.

the Basics

Characters are defined primarily by their Natures and Traits.

There are two Natures: Human and Horrific. The more Human you are, the less Horrific you are, and vice-versa. Everybody’s at least a little bit Horrific, but plenty of things are completely in-Human.

There are 18 Traits, so we’re not going to list them all here. Traits represent skills, affinities, professions, interests, and so on. A character might be good at fighting, or scientifically minded, or sneaky, or whatever. When you want to do something, you’ll be using a Trait.

There are three other elements of a character that, unlike Natures and Traits, are situational, in that you won’t always be including them for every roll of the dice. These are Bonds, Tools, and Grafts.

Bonds are a character’s emotional ties to other people – specifically, they’re ties to other characters. These come in four basic varieties: trust, distrust, loyalty, and betrayal.

Tools are items that help characters accomplish tasks, from a set of lockpicks to a length of rope to a socket wrench to a .38 Special. Usually, a Tool can only be used with a specific Trait.

Grafts are body parts from Horrors that have been transplanted onto a character’s body. These come in three varieties: Greater, Lesser, and Minor. Greater Grafts are things like giant bat wings, or two writhing tentacles in place of a character’s arms. Lesser Grafts are less severe, such as a tail or a single replaced limb, and Minor Grafts are much smaller: a Horrific (or third) eye, a tongue, or a sharp-toothed

mouth in a surprising new location. They also make people tougher and more survivable – big pluses in the post-apocalyptic landscape – and confer amazing recuperative powers when first transplanted. Many a life has been saved, or at least prolonged, by the timely application of a Graft.

Each of these five components is rated in die size, usually from d4 to d12. We’ll refer to these as your Trait die, your Nature die, your Bond die, and so on. Whenever you want to do something that requires a roll, you’ll roll one Trait die and one Nature die, add the results together to get your total, and compare that with a target number, or Target, to see if you succeeded or failed. If a Bond, Tool, or Graft is relevant, you’ll roll one or more of those, too.

For example, if you’re trying to fix a car and you have an ace set of tools, you’ll roll your Mechanical die, your Human die, and your Tool die. If you’re trying to steal Jim’s car and your Bond with Jim is “I’d betray Jim for a nice set of wheels,” you’d roll Mechanical, Human Nature, and your Bond with Jim.

Sometimes the rules refer to steps with regard to dice, like “+2 steps” or “-1 step.” Sometimes, a move up to the next highest die is called a “step forward”; a move down to the next lowest die, a “step back”.

For example, if you’re rolling a d6, +1 step would mean rolling a d8 instead; +2 steps (or “two steps forward”) would bump that d6 up to a d10, and -1 step (or “one step back”) would make it a d4. Dice can’t be raised higher than d12 or lower than d4, unless stated otherwise.

Those are the basics of the game.

I have tried rewriting a portion of Disconnect in this vein.