abyssalbrews

Auctoratus

Added 2024-01-04 16:00:04 +0000 UTC

Greetings adventurers!

I say it’s entertainment for barbarians, but none can argue that the public duels are profitable days bringing in hundreds from around the countryside to see blood be spilled. I keep my distance from the arena proper, merely happy to tend my shop and sell to the doe-eyed folks roaming the city for the first time. On one such say, my door bolted open revealing a blood drenched man carrying what looked to be a lion’s head under his arm. Upon closer inspection, it was thankfully just a helmet fashioned to look that way. He asked what I’d pay for it and I asked what it was, as he told me the secrets of his countless victories in the ring. He said he was done now and as a free man it was his right to leave it all behind. We agreed on a price and I got a new head… er uh helmet!

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Design notes from Matthew:

Sometimes you just want to make a gladiator helmet. Actually we noticed that we had a slight lack of headwear and I wanted to start correcting that. I always love the idea of putting skills that make sense on that part of the body. If you want to make something focused on yelling, well you best make sure it’s close to the mouth. I see some try to get too clever with moving things around, but there’s a familiarity and an understanding that comes with putting an item that interacts with speed on the feet and so on. People can instantly understand how that would work in a much more clear way.

The actual design of this was inspired by warcries I’ve seen in various video games over the years. I’m often looking at mechanics in games and wondering how I can move those into a way that makes sense for the tabletop world. It’s a great way to get some options at least when it comes to combat. Typically game mechanics are a bit too fiddly and percentage based, small numbers and exact mathematics. That's fine when a computer is doing all of the processing, but less so when you have to manage it at the table. That’s when it becomes about simplification.

Here, I boiled down exactly what was cool about those warcry mechanics to me. You yell and everything that can hear you is either affected or in some way contributes to something for you in the future. In this case, the simplest method I could devise was just counting. Most folks can get that number really quick and note it down for themselves. Taking damage the next time, you can easily subtract and get the number you actually need. The little bonus for dropping the damage to zero was a fun balancing point. It felt like that should be a special moment.

We’re into the new year with our first new item and I’m so glad we’re starting it off roaring. It’s exciting to be delving into another year of creation and we hope to bring you even more than before with new ways to access our content and more conveniences for you as patrons. We can’t wait to share them all with you.

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