Writing my Odd Game

cramOS is not a dungeon crawler, actually

A week of vacation sent me spiraling into fresh ideas.

0.96 DEVLOG:

TO CRAWL INTO DUNGEONS

At first, cramOS was conceptualized from two novelty ideas: a narrative about Robots without humans, and installing Body Mods as a gameplay loop.

It was, then, born as a WEIRD SURVIVAL SCIFI TTRPG.

During its development, it got a new tag; DUNGEON CRAWLER.

And suddenly, this element became central to the loop. The game became about going to settlements, finding some goals, traveling around to burrows, and exploring those burrows.

That, however, didn't develop nor spoke to the most important elements of cramOS: the game has no torches. No timekeeping, no dungeon turns, no limited rope, nor random encounter tables.

And worst of all: it didn't really speak to my own experience and desires when I play TTRPGs. My games have dungeons, yes, but I end up going for short, one session dungeons, then doing something different next week, to mix it up. I don't think I ever spent more than 2 sessions inside a dungeon, and don't plan to ever do that.

It has dungeons, and treasures deep below. But there was no sustenance nor love in these pages to call it a DUNGEON CRAWLER.

So let's subtract. Go back to its original terms.

A SURVIVAL GAME

What makes a game about survival?

In short, and by no means technical terms: resource balance and management; elements like weather, heat, fatigue; not only dying in fights, but from the environment, or spiraling into an unfixable situation. In TTRPG terms, the game can have resources to balance, and different places to gather them. These resources should balance themselves on and off, and failing to gather them will punish Characters with Conditions or, on the other hand, benefit the Character for maxing out one or other resources.

WHAT IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER GAMES?

The usual Survival experience is crunchy. See Forbidden Lands, Mutant Year Zero, Twilight 2000... all of them favor bookeeping bullets, arrows, food, water, fuel, in detriment of a smoother game.

Endure is a great rules-lite survival TTRPG; but it leans on story games solutions.

SIMPLICITY

cramOS has three main resources: Scrap, Body Parts, and Attributes.

Scraps are clear: they feed all systems and all systems compete for scrap. Accumulate them, and make permanent upgrades. But neglect your needs and die prematurely.

Body Parts are expendanble: you can use their Condition Dice to preserve HP and Attributes by blocking damage and shortening fights, but also preserve them to have a better time with Saves.

Attributes can be sacrificed for progress: save some scrap by tanking some hits. Keep your Body Part new, but risk malfunction.

Scraps fix Body Parts and Attributes. Body Parts protect Attributes and pass Saves. Attributes facilitate Saves and allow you to save Scraps if you hold that healing a little longer.

So cramOS is simple, but not narrative.

HEALING IS HARD

Instead of your usual "long rest to heal to full", cramOS started with the following rules for Respite:

"RESPITE. Requires at least one other Bot. You have zero HP and Armor for the duration. Each Scrap spent raises the tier of a Condition Dice, heal a point of Attribute, or gets your HP back to full. A Bot may only install new Body Parts during Respites."

So Respite conditions were already harsh: you have to expend Scrap per point of Attribute, and gets vulnerable for the duration.

Let's make it worse: now, a short rest - or a Quick Fix - costs a Scrap just to be done, but the free Full Maintenances can only be done in Settlements.

Which means if you save your Rest for the Settlement, you can save yourself some efficiency:

BEING HURT IS EXPECTED AND CONSTANT

Changing the base Character Creation Roll so a Robot starts the game hurt was a moment of pride.

I wanted to translate both that Robots are wrecked, but also that a Player shouldn't expect them to be fully healed all the time.

For that, a fully healed attribute allows for rolls in advantage. How much are you willing to sacrifice to keep that stat full?

A halved stat means you are malfunctioning and rolls with disadvantage. Ride that middle of the road.

COOPERATION AND COMPETITION

Characters must work together, either through the rules (maintenances require other Bots to protect and fix you), or the narrative.

But Characters are in a harsh world. If you relinquish the prize everytime, you will be left behind. Will you allow the deadweight to take the best Body Part?

REVISED RULES

MAIN DIRECTIVES.

Consider these principles when playing:

ATTRIBUTES

Roll 3D6 for each. The total represents your max on that attribute. Add the two higher dice for your current value.

MAINTENANCE

Either a Quick Fix, or Full Maintenances. During either, a Robot has no HP or Defenses, and at least one other Bot is required.

Each Scrap spent raises the tier of a Condition Dice by one, fix a point of Attribute by one, or gets your HP back to full.

QUICK FIX. Can be done anywhere, but costs one Scrap to do. Can be done to fix HP or Body Parts, but not Attributes.

FULL MAINTENANCE. Can only be performed in settlements, but costs no Scrap. Allow the full workup. New Body Parts and Upgrades can only be installed during Full Maintenance.

SAVES.

An uncertain act of risk and consequences requires a Save to succeed. Roll a D20; if equal or under the appropriate attribute, you pass.

A failed Save may be retried with an appropriate Body Part, per page [-].

FULL ATRIBUTE. Whenever you make a Save with an undamaged Attribute, roll two D20s and keep the lower result.

MALFUNCTIONING. Whenever you make a Save with an Attribute below half of its Max value, roll two D20s and keep the higher result.

DAMAGE

Either physical, mental or spark damage. Whenever a Bot takes damage from a weapon, it is first reduced by Defenses, then subtracted from your HP. Damage from other sources like traps or falls can only be reduced by Parts.

ARMOR DEFENSE. Reduces body damage per value of Armor. Upgraded by Legs, as well as different tools, like improvised shields.

FIREWALL DEFENSE. Reduces mental or spark damage per value of Firewall. Arms can upgrade your Firewall, but rarely a tool will help.

ATTRIBUTE DAMAGE.

Harm to the important bits. If any of your Attributes hits 0, you are beyond repair and hit system failure.

BODY DAMAGE. Physical. Stabs, bludgeons, falls.

Causes hardware failure: little to no salvageable parts, from life to junk.

MIND DAMAGE. Systematic. Shocks, EMPs, jammers.

Causes software failure: reset to factory mode and basic functions. The method of choice of veteran Phagers.

SPARK DAMAGE. Morale. Horrors, scares, hopelessness.

Causes ego death: become Dimmed. Instant Violence.