Update: Oh Boy, New Mechanics

As discussed on Wednesday, The Way of the Earth's central game mechanics underwent a massive overhaul this week as I labored to simplify the system, respond to early play-test feedback, and incorporate some new ideas I had been experimenting with. The first fruits of the this overhaul are complete and have been posted under the mechanics page. 

The Judge Two System has been changed so that there are advantages (called innocence) and disadvantages (called guilt) on every roll, eliminating the neutral roll results possible with the older system. Players no longer spend one die to raise the other, rather, they simply choose one die to be Truth (and decide innocence or guilt) and one die to be Light (and determine action success or failure).

The Way of the Earth's health and damage mechanics have been overhauled and simplified. There is no longer any damage, any hit points, or any stamina and poise dice. Now, anything that would cause damage or adversely effect a character contributes to a single pool called risk. By itself, risk does nothing, but it increases the chances that characters take on conditions, which are The Way of the Earth's new wound based health system.

Time and Place has been updated to reflect the fact that things like initiative and rounds are gone. Now, every roll's Truth die, through innocence or guilt, determines who acts next in a conflict. This can impose an interesting choice on players, who may find themselves having to decide between succeeding on an important attack but allowing an enemy to act next, or failing that attack and allowing an ally to come to the rescue.

The Resolving Actions page has taken the place of the old action description page and the old simple actions page and now covers a lot more information in a much more concise fashion. The language around actions has become much more consistent and focused. What used to be contested ends are now broken into tiers called takes, marks, and checks, which better use the new risk system and incentivize strategy and teamwork in conflicts.

Whew!

This next week I will be taking the new mechanics out for some more tests and doing a few passes over the other pages, including the character pages, to make sure class abilities reflect the new mechanics.