Combat Math in Missions & Mayhem

Yeah, another math post about the mechanics of Missions & Mayhem. These (here, here, here, and here) get a lot of reads, but rarely much comment. I assume either that means people don't want to comment on something they're just reading about but haven't played, or else everything I'm posting seems alright to them so they have not much to say. Either way, there seem to be no egregious math that would elicit corrections so that's encouraging. 

I was reading Eric's thoughts on a single saving throw (Swords & Wizardry style). It got me thinking about the math behind my saving throw system, and the combat mechanics more broadly. 

Following d20 Modern, M&M has Fortitude (modified by Constitution), Reflex (modified by Dexterity), and Will (modified by Wisdom) saving throws. Originally, I gave each class lowering target numbers for each save, the way classic and advanced D&D do it. If you multiclassed among the various Heroic Classes, you took the best value. But then when I started adding Advanced Classes in the campaign modules, I had wonky math going on. 

So, I've changed it to be more like the original. Now, each class provides bonuses to the die roll, along with ability modifiers. If you multiclass, you just add the new modifiers to your save values. 

Unlike the original D&D saves with different target numbers depending on the type of save and your class/level, or the d20 system that I'm riffing on which had varying target DCs for different types of saving throw, there is one constant and unchanging save target number: 16. 

This gives someone with no bonus (average ability score and no class modifier) a 25% chance to succeed on any saving throw. 

Combat, for comparison, uses ascending AC with the base AC as 11. So rolling a flat d20 with no bonus to hit, and the target has no armor or Dexterity adjustments, and no situational modifiers, you have a 50% chance to hit. 

These numbers seem like a good base to work from for me. 

It also means that area of effect attacks (spray autofire, grenades, etc.) need to hit AC 11 to affect the appropriate area. There's a "grenade bounce" check to see where the effect actually lands on a miss, which still might affect some of the intended targets. And then the targets get saving throws to avoid or mitigate the effects. 

Again, the math works well, giving I think, fair odds for combats in the game.  

 

TTRPG in Korea's Online SummerCon 2026

 SummerCon 2026 is approaching. It will be on August 28th to 30th, KST (GMT +9). 

We have a lot more games than gamers, apparently. Maybe lots of folks are on vacations at the end of the summer. Whatever the reason, we have a lot of games with open spots. So we (I'm part of the organizing committee) have decided to open up the Con to people outside Korea. 

 If anyone reading is interested, check out our registration page on Warhorn. You'll need to register with Warhorn, and the Con is on Discord (plus various VTTs at each GM's preference) so you'll also need to join the TTRPG in Korea Discord server at least until the end of the conference. 

SummerCon Registration 

https://warhorn.net/events/korea-summercon-2026

TTRPG in Korea

https://discord.gg/5P7pM7Vpn 

I'm running a Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins Ruby game, and I've got the Exploration Focused Play workshop as well, both on Saturday. The only person yet to sign up for the workshop is also on the organizing committee, so I may cancel that and just chat with him about the topic one-on-one sometime. But there's still a week to sign up, so maybe it will get a little more interest. 

There is a wide variety of games, old school, new school, traditional, narrative, cozy, etc.  

Movie Review - Spider-Man Brand New Day

 I saw the new Spider-Man film a few hours ago, and I really liked it. Here's a bit of spoiler-free review. 

First off, for the moms worried about cursing in the movie, there's quite a bit, most (all?) of it coming from Frank Castle/Punisher. So be warned. Not like Kevin Smith film, Blues Brothers, or The Big Lebowski levels of cursing, but a lot compared to any previous Spider-Man film.

The movie is very busy. There's a lot of characters, a lot going on, and yet it doesn't feel rushed. It's a character-driven story just as much as it is plot-driven. And the main characters all get moments to grow and develop during the film. Some more than others, of course, but there are lots of character moments. Also, lots of what I assume are more subtle tie-ins to future MCU films/shows than in some of the previous projects. But no spoilers. 

Destin Daniel Cretton has a great eye for capturing motion and getting dynamic fight scenes. There's a reason Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is high up on my MCU list of great films. And while there's a lot going on in this film, it feels like a cohesive story. 

To be honest, it felt like the way monthly ongoing comic books (used to? I haven't kept up) structure stories. The first act of the movie has Spider-Man/Peter Parker juggling personal and work-related problems, and he's up against Scorpion and the Punisher (sorta). Then the middle act involves Spidey dealing with the Department of Damage Control, the Hulk, continuing personal problems, and Sadie Sink's character. The third act brings the Punisher back in and resolves most of the conflicts, personal and villain-related. It's got plenty of open threads for future stories, though. It felt like the way a 3-part comic arc is scripted. 

So kudos to Marvel/Sony for getting out another character-focused superhero movie. After this film, Thunderbolts*, and Daredevil Born Again, I've got high expectations for Avengers: Doomsday later this year.  

 

Total Party Capture

Today was the third linked adventure for play testing Bughunts & Bedlam, following on the previous two planetary mine investigations. Today's session was all aboard Longinus Station, in orbit around planet RX-55. 

During the first investigation (krytes from the movie Critters invaded a mine), one of the station technicians was an oddball.  What the PCs didn't know is that a Puppeteer, a mind-control bug based on Heinlein's Puppet Masters but also Ceti eels from Wrath of Khan, the brain parasite aliens in TNG's Conspiracy episode, and any other creatures that latch on to your brainstem and then control you, had taken control of the technician. And there was a crate full of them waiting to infest the rest of the crew. 

Session two (battling Alien Bounty Hunters and Coeurls), when they returned to the station, a few more people were odd. 

This session, they set out to find out who was mind controlled, or a secret synthetic, or maybe a doppelganger type shapeshifter. It actually didn't take long, as early in the session Jada's Hero Sarah went off with one of the infected crew members, who took her to the cargo storage area to try to infect her. She avoided that, but the infected scientist got away. Charles and Steven's Heroes Magnum and Conner (respectively) were looking for clues and not finding much, when suddenly there was an alarm. Someone had sabotaged part of the engineering section. They went to help patch it up, but failed their rolls. The first infected tech showed up to "fix" the situation. 

Our heroes met up with each other and took one of the security officers (compromised!) to confront the station medic, who they knew had acted oddly. There was a fight, but both infected crew were subdued. Sarah  performed surgery to remove the medic's puppeteer, but failed to remove the security officer's. Another alarm went off in the loading dock during the surgeries, but they ignored it. Finally, a decompression event happened in the maintenance bay. 

They put on oxygen masks and went to see what they could do. All of the remaining infected crew (five of them) were waiting. Unfortunately for our crew, Steven was tired (and maybe a bit bored of mostly talk talk talk) and fell asleep at the table. So Connor was out of this final battle. And it went sideways quickly. One tangler grenade wrapped up the infected admin guy with a rifle. Another wrapped up more. The remaining infected crew fired stunners, but didn't take out the Heroes. One last tangler grenade missed, and the bounce roll showed that it came right back at the Heroes. They both failed their saves. 

So, all the Heroes were captured, and they and the remaining uninfected crew became hosts for puppeteers. 

They should have destroyed the case the puppeteers came in when they had the chance! 

_______

Luckily for the players, we're running play test games, so despite the horrible end, the PCs will be back next session for more. And they leveled up, with Sarah taking the Xenologist advanced class, and Magnum taking the Trooper advanced class. I'll get Steven to level up his PC later, and Denis and Justin can level up their Heroes next session. 

Serendipity (III)

 At the beginning of the year, my wife started learning Korean calligraphy. Then, a few months back, she found an art teacher to teach her watercolor painting to decorate the calligraphy designs. My wife came home from her art class the other day and said she mentioned to the teacher that I was writing an RPG book. The art teacher offered to do some art for the book. 

So we messaged a bit, and then went to talk to her a couple of days ago. 

She's now working on a design for cover art for Missions & Mayhem. It will be a full color acrylic painting, if we do commission her for it. Her work that I've seen is very good, and we shared some concept art, other modern-ish RPG cover art, etc. along with some reference art for the characters that will grace the cover. 

She said she can also do black and white line art fairly easily, so I'll probably commission some more interior art pieces from her later. 

Another artist in Seoul, Jeff Witty, has been doing a lot of art for Dungeon Crawl Classics lately. We've also talked, and he likes my concept for art to highlight the character classes, but he's pretty busy with commissions already. Hopefully, I'll be able to snag a few pictures from him as well.

There's no monsters in the core book, but I'll of course be commissioning some monster art from my buddy Jeremy Hart for the campaign module books. I want to support him as much as possible, too.

I'm pretty excited to see what the art teacher does with the concept I gave her. And once I've got the cover art, it will be a lot easier to start promoting the books. Other than revising some "how to play" and "how to run the game" sections, the main Missions & Mayhem core rules book is done. I'm pretty happy with how it plays, and I don't expect to make more than tweaks to the game from here on out.  

Encouraging Exploration

 

Amae (Aurelian) and the good folks at the TTRPG in Korea Discord server are again hosting an online Summer Con, coming up at the end of August. I've volunteered to help with organizing this time, since I've got a bit of experience from the BTGC last fall. So far, I haven't had to do much.

I pitched one Treasures, Serpents, & Ruins game (Ruby), using an old adventure I wrote back when I was still in Japan. It's been updated and modified along the way. Actually, I think I used to give it away as a free download here on the blog in the old days. 

I also pitched, since the New GM workshop was cancelled at the Busan Con this past spring, a workshop about exploration-based play. It will be based on the main gist of my New GM workshop idea. Trying to get younger/newer players out of the mindset that they need to craft a story before they can run a game. 

But since it's a general workshop, I'll also be trying to give player advice to help players think and explore the fictional worlds of our games more, rather than just waiting for the next crumb of a plot hook from the GM. Themes/topics may include: 

Dungeon Crawls

Hex Crawls (including West Marches style play)

XP for Gold

Diagetic Problem Solving through Questions and Detailed Observation

Sandbox Play 

Setting Up a (small & contained at the start) World, Not a Story 

Because he used those special parts / To make his robot friends

I've spent the better part of this week working on the robot rules for Bughunts & Bedlam. 

Not special rules for running robots (I already have the Android Character section written), but rules for designing and building robots. 

I looked at the various robot rules in d20 Modern products (core book, d20 Future, and Menace Manual all have robot design guidelines, and they're all a little different). I also went to refresh myself on the venerable (or at least tolerated, in some circles) robot rules from Star Frontiers. 

And while I'm done with it, and it should work just fine, I'm looking at it now thinking maybe I made it too fiddly.  I've got base costs based on the frame (armature, standard, and aesthetic) and size. Then add-ons like legs or wheels or sensors or security systems are either a set cost or a % of the base frame's price. 

Then I made a bunch of sample robots, and man, it was a pain to tally up the costs based on the options each model had. It was also a bit of a pain to have to list them all in the "monster" description. 

Star Frontiers has a much simpler function x body type chart, with some add-ons for different types of movement, programming, or additional equipment integrated into the robot. I may make something in that vein, although a bit expanded in the functional robot types and body types/sizes based on what I've already got. 

What I have now is 6 pages long in draft. I think I can streamline this a bit. 

_____

Update: After a weekend of revision, I'm down to 5 pages and a much simpler system to determine a robot's features and functions. 

Now I've gone back to the planetary environment effects. Thick atmospheres. Alkaline water. Constant earthquakes. That sort of stuff.