Saturday 12 February 2011

Triffles (9) - A broken fall

If you opened that trapdoor, it would be well to be careful, or hope for a broken fall.



                                           a limb trapped / strap caught /
                                          branch / ledge / outcrop / pile

              /

a broken fall

/             \

 a good vantage point /           a cry of pain / clatter of
 fortunate line of sight             equipment / breakages



Rules simulating this kind of thing could well be found in skirmish games, and they suit roleplaying too. If a model is close to an edge and struck, on a certain roll they might fall, on another roll get stuck and become a sitting duck. In exchange the model could get a clear shot. Think Han Solo above the sarlacc, here from 8:22.

In general lots of questions. What exactly has the individual fallen on and how will they get down, or even back up? What can they see? What have they lost? Most importantly perhaps, what will be attracted by the noise they've made, and will they fall further? 

It's good for comedy too.

8 comments:

Paul´s Bods said...

What if the trapdoor led to a M.C. Escher type world?? Then it wouldn´t be a fall but a shift sideways or upside down, in comparison to the previous plane. Can you actually drop anything in an Escher world??
Cheers
paul

Anonymous said...

Your blog seems to be way above my IQ.Am i rite?

Innovations said...

thats pretty interesting to me

The Angry Lurker said...

In wargaming you would use this as a possible side mission to rescue fallen comrade but only a certain amount of turns or the enemy could set this up to entice rescue to take out friendlies as they try to rescue, psy-ops at its best.

Paul´s Bods said...

I´ve thought a bit further about my Escher world type trap door. For everything else on the other side (the side opposed to the one in the "real world")would a 3D world with the rules we have be an anti - Escher world?
Would weaponary work differently as well. The laws (our ones) of physics are suspended (quite literally in some cases) in the escher world so would you possibly end up shooting yourself if you fired on an adversary and if that was the case would you have to shoot at yourself to kill the adversary?
Cheers
paul

Bartender said...

a forgotten shopping item
.
.
.
an apology to the cashier
.
.
.
a frantic gallop to the frozen section
.
.
.
a race back to the cashier
.
.
.
a long queue of angry shoppers
.
.
.
an embarrassed look

Porky said...

This one really captured the imagination..!

@ Paul's Bods - You're getting the hang of this I can see! I have no clue what would happen so I'm glad you're still thinking about it. You should post on it, or better still model a part of the world - could that be done? It would certainly make for a fun adventure anyway, but it would be a brave person who fired a weapon in a place like that at all. Unless it was a weapon made there..?

@ meandmythinkingcap - I don't know about the blog, but Paul's Bods is really pushing us today..!

@ Innovations - Glad to hear it. Incidentally, I've never thought of how these might work in the context of songwriting, but now you've got me. Need to ponder that.

@ The Angry Lurker - Your ideas are becoming an essential part of the series, and that's a very effective extension of this one. I can see ever better your games would be good ones.

@ Bartender - We need a talent like Angry's to get us a mission out of that, and Paul's Bods for a vision of what lies beyond the chiller cabinet.

Paul´s Bods said...

I have started to work on my version of this.I will let you know if it works or not.
Cheers
Paul