[Setting] Kynkrea's Overview of Urutsk-

(c) Copyright 1985, 2002, 2009 Kyrinn S. Eis All Rights Reserved

IN An alternate reality, the star system in which the planet known by many as, URUTSK <'Crash Landing'>, encircles a brighter, slightly hotter yellow-orange star than your sun. URUTSK has many neighbours, all somewhat similar, yet very divergent those of your Solar system.

It is slightly smaller than your earth, and now, composed of far fewer heavy metals, and more simple crystalline structures. It has roughly 10% more water, in addition to its smaller size. This means that much of the world is at least somewhat flooded, or frigid, depending on local weather patterns.

The humans, yes, almost identical to you, have their own ethnicities, but most reflect blends of existing or former ethnicities found on your world, Earth.

URUTSK has a rich and radical history of major disasters befalling mankind roughly every thousand years, many brought upon the world due to the tragically-flawed efforts of the first human, Xoen. All native humans are his offspring.

Resultantly, most languages follow a similar alphabet, a central concept that has affected every endeavour of mankind, since the knowledge arrived in the 'War in Heaven'. That was when the First Parents descended from the great conflagration in the heavens, and came to commingle with the natives.

At that point, there were only a handful of ethnicities:

* Yirinn Ak <'Powerful People of the Black Ice'>

* Durn <'Unwavering Generation'>

* Kaukara <'World-wise Ones'>

Afterward, through their mating with the Imperial bloodline of the First Parents, all the ethnicities came to light in the next millennium or thereabouts.

Different 'eras', generally deliniated by the undoubted masters of URUTSK, the Vrun peoples, are either based upon discoveries, radical political changes, or wars -- often all at the same time.

Indeed, very soon after the First Parents touched the soil of URUTSK, a deadly storm that affected the entire star system showered debris from the War in Heaven down upon URUTSK. This in turn obscurred the system-star, their sun, and brought on terrible storms that scoured the planet clean of virtually all greenery.
No one knows how long the Scourge lasted, but what emerged from the Storm Age was the foundation of modern URUTSK.

Eventually, just as your earth did, we Urutskel <`I'm Born of URUTSK'>, split the atom. Unlike your world, we instantly and universally banned it. Like you, we built them by the gross. But, we were not fixated on the cheap and terrible weapons as were your scientists. No, we devised screens to filtre-out hard radiation as a countermeasure, then went on to develop Plasmatic Acids; LASERS, MASERS, XASERS, and others, beside.

Our militaries are significantly different from yours.
We believe in redundancy of command and small unit tactics, co-ordinated En Mass. Our Infantry are equipped with hypersonic caseless munitions fired from 'bullpup' carbines. The tiny rounds create horrifying wound cavities out to about [1,000 m], before friction with the atmosphere causes them to disintegrate. Most nations have true jet-packs that allow their troops limited flight, but greatly extends their ability to manoeuvre in most sorts of terrain through leaps and jumps. Each trooper has a complex communications suite in their environmentally sealed battledress, and the suits have limited life-saving capabilities, as well as environmental support.

Orbital weapons platforms are owned by only two nations: * The Peoples' Automatic Union -- a communist state administrated by an artificial intelligence known as, Mother; and, The Vrun Continental Authority -- a New-Agey Socialist society with hawkish tendencies. The VCA also patrol the inner system, and have attempted to colonise Aqmlk, the equivalent of your Mars.

[RPG] The Plethora of Rolling Methods in Old School games-

(c) Copyright 2009 Kyrinn S. Eis all rights reserved

Everything boils down to Percentile, or a clever die-mechanic for its own sake.
Combat on 1d20 was an afterthought, but it 'stuck', and contemporary games like Swordsmen & Spellslingers' reversion to 2d6, or Tunnels & Trolls' continued use of the 2d6 Saving Roll, illustrate that a tight bell-curve works fine, so long as the limitations of the curve and its havoc on Percentages is taken into account.

In my attempt to remain faithful to the Old School, I occasionally argue with myself regarding the best die-mechanic to employ for a given situation. In general, I emulate existing principles, if only for generic applicability, such as the ubiquitous 1d6 for Ambush, Detecting Architectural Features, Surprise, and Trap-springing.

But, knowing that a '1 or 2 on d6' is really a 33% makes me occasionally want to wander from the simple homage, toward something more akin to ICE's Rolemaster. And then I stop myself.
But, why is potentially deadly combat better on a d20 with its chunky 5% blocks, when less critical 'Thieving Skills' are more precise with their d%?
Why!?

Tradition, and Portability.

If my game is to be Old School from a mechanics PoV; if it is to be generically compatible with OD&D, S&W, or BFRPG; it 'ought' to follow Tradition for Portability's-sake. Right?
Picking up a neo-Old School adventure module and running it in UWoM is greatly facilitated by having standardised mechanics (although, yes, OS is all about self-reliant and adaptable GMs/Refs), but more importantly, a Labyrinth Lord (etc.) ought to be able to pick up an UWoM adventure or supplement and have minimal conversion work -- if only out of professional courtesy.

So, what's a girl to do, but stick with Tradition?
---

* UWoM's combat isn't based upon an Armour Penetration 'to hit', but a more Palladiumesque 'physical connect' premise, and this reflects in a lower base number to be scored on the d20, although Str still figures in a modifier for brute attacks, while Dex figures for 'finesseable' attacks and ranged. Once a hit is determined, damage is rolled, and the Armour die is subtracted from the result before Dodge Points are deducted from the target.

* Con still figures into Dodge Points, but (Constitution score + Str mod.) is the terminal Threshold for actual damage, not simply 0 or -10.

* Percentile rolls are made as 'higher is better', rather than 'roll-under', with 100 as the target number, because, psychologically, higher seems better/cooler, and generating a 128 on a Pick Locks just seems to tell me as a Referee that you did it a lot faster than the cat who rolled a 101. Likewise, Binding Wounds are made on d%, and modifies how much damage is actually treated.

That leaves us with the quirky n in d6 rolls, of which I'm of the opinion that 'higher is better' should apply to as well. But, do these rolls on d6 make sense?
I'm this close to switching them out for d%.

Thoughts?

[RPG] The Next Steps-

(c) Copyright 2009 Kyrinn S. Eis all rights reserved

After much calculation and tabulation, I think the Point-Design system for Character Creation is complete-enough to build all of the standard FRP trope 'Classes' (Fighter, Mage, Holy, and Rogue), as well as most, if not all, 'sub-Classes' (Assassin, Barbarian, Dedicated Warrior, etc.)
My next step is to collate the extant XP progression tables from my model RPG (Chris Gonnerman's excellent Basic Fantasy Role Playing Game), to create a 'generic' XP table to be used by the Referee for pacing purposes.

Pacing in the Point-Design system is important insomuch that it prevents outright distortions of the power ramp characters follow, as well as helping keep the entire party in a degree of parity (not true Balance, mind you). Thus, allowing more minor purchases to be made 'live' in-game (such as increasing Technical Skills such as those often attributed to 'Thieves': Trap Removal, Hiding, and so forth), but retraining rampant escalation of Spell Slots/Points or Fight Dice, etc.

In my Alpha Playtest Group (APG hereafter), the player controlling Tybalt the Bard purchased 9 Spell Points once we had converted the characters over to the P-D system. I thought about that over the week, and asked him to scale back the total to 4 purchased points (in line with a 2nd-Level M-U), but I then granted him the +2 from Tybalt's Charisma modifier. Though the difference was only three points, I felt as though things were less likely to spiral out of control should I not pay meticulous attention to the character's development. Likewise, other Ability Score bonuses had already figured in (Constitution toward Dodge Points, and Strength / Dexterity toward Attack Bonus, etc.).

As I have noted on the Dragonsfoot Workshop thread, I am reluctant to port over too many fiddly bits of Latter Day RPG design sensibilities, such as sharply-defined special abilities (Untraceable Steps, Vanish From View, or the like), and must now decide which, if any, will make the translation, and what sort of mechanic will address these sorts of situations otherwise.

Toward that end, I have already introduced -Focus-, which are generic points which the player may ask to apply to various established die-roll functions such as the Ability Test, Critical Tests (known in other games s Saving Throws), Technical Skills (in which case they are treated as +5% each), or the quirky 1d6 'Detect' or 'Surprise' mechanics so ingrained in the Old School systems. In the last case, given the mathematics of a d6, I have decided that it will take 3 Focus to emulate a +1 (worth roughly 16.67%) on the d6 rolls.
Also, in my initial write-up of the Devoted Warrior (a Paladin by another name), I have introduced the concept of the 'dedicated purchase' (currently at a 25% discount) toward such abilities as 'Smiting' a particular foe-type, or Dedicated Focus exclusively for detecting the foe-type. Furthermore, by simply dividing the cost by the 'number of times usable per day', a further reduction in cost is garnered.
I think these mechanics resolve most of the Latter Day special abilities rather nicely. We shall see...

I had asked on Dragonsfoot for some brainstorming assistance on the general topic of Perception, and how to handle it in the game.
Perhaps stimulated by that request, a poster started a General Discussion topic on the very subject, spawning the fairly typical demographic break-downs of: 'No need for a die roll'; 'Int or Wis'; and the occasional more unusual concept ('Int, Wis, or Cha, depending on the context' -- I especially liked that one).
So, now, I ask you for your input here. Thanks. :)

Scattered throughout the Metacosmos...-

All instances of Urutsk, Urutsk: Worlds of Mystery, The Grand Tapestry setting, The Hereafter, and particular proper-nouns derived from these works are (c) Copyright 2023 Kyrinn S. Eis all rights reserved.

Various sites, groups, blogs, and message-posts on the web have borne the name, Urutsk, in some fashion since about 2000.

Hundreds of posts on the subject were created on a Yahoo! Club that was ungracefully transformed into a Group, with the subsequent loss of all formatting. That knocked the wind out of my sails for a good while. It still remains as of today's date, but once recorded into some sort of archive file, will likely be put out of its misery.

While a novel has been published within The Grand Tapestry, featuring characters from Urutsk and its general milieu, the ambitious work of chronicling the entire four arcs from first Spring through to Winter, will, in all likelihood, never be completed. It is simply too large a scope in its seven thousand years of history.

That is not to say that in many ways, and through different media, the setting's rich background and detailed cultures and characters won't receive their due. Instead, I find it both good and necessary to use a multi-disciplinary palate to paint this vision, and many needles threaded with different hues to create The Grand Tapestry.

As regards fiction:

• I have compiled my completed works into an unofficial .pdf release which a few friends have in their possession, and after editing and revision, I intend to release the volume via a POD service, likely LuLu if they are still solvent at the time.

As regards RolePlaying Games:

• I am currently writing the Urutsk: Worlds of Mystery RPG in the Old School style which spawned it. As a great admirer of many of the current Simulacra and Clones of early-edition RPGs, and a devotee of particular and still extant games such as Ken St. Andre's Tunnels & Trolls, and Professor Barker's Tekumel (among others), I am making every effort to blend my particular mechanics-vision with the sensibilities of the old games. Likewise, I intend to publish via LuLu, as part of the Old School Renaissance movement.

So, this concludes the introductory post to this site.

I thank you for reading,
-Timeshadows