Doomed Ones (a sorcerous subclass for Dragon Warriors)

Doomed Ones were originally a magic-using character class that I created in 1980 for Adventure, a roleplaying game that Games Workshop commissioned me to write. (The title was their idea.) A Doomed One permanently burnt a point of Constitution to unlock about twenty quite powerful spells. The character got one use of each spell and at any time could sacrifice another Constitution point to get another use of the twenty. Since Constitution both set the basis for the character’s hit points and limited the number of times they could be resurrected, it was a death sentence with a lot of power to use up on your way to the grave.

Even if Adventure (did I mention that was GW’s idea?) had ever been published, I’m not sure Doomed Ones would have made the final cut. They were kind of boring. A player would cross off a couple of Constitution points, then stingily husband their forty spells in any encounter while letting other characters do the heavy lifting. Not that that couldn’t make for an interesting dynamic, just that there was only one story to tell there and it didn’t bear repeating dozens of times.

There’s a certain logic to revisiting the idea using Dragon Warriors, seeing as how DW evolved out of my notes for Adventure (huh, that title…). So here they are.

Doomed Ones

A Doomed One is a Sorcerer who has bound themselves under ominous stars in the pursuit of magical power to the exclusion of all else. The Doomed One is treated like a normal Sorcerer except as follows:

Attack, Defence, Stealth, Evasion and Health Points do not increase with rank. Magic Points increase faster than for regular Sorcerers.

Because Doomed Ones are half in love with easeful death, they are unaffected by fright attacks caused by ghosts and the undead.

Every Doomed One has a fate in the form of a death that has been prophesied for them -- their doom. When creating the character, the player specifies a time of day (night, morning, afternoon or evening) and a cause of death. Causes of death should be reasonably general, not “belladonna mixed into warm milk” or "bitten in the ankle by an adder", say. Pick from this list or (with the GM’s discretion) something similar:

A blunt weapon, a cat, a dog, an edged weapon, fire, a fish, a fungus, a horse, an insect, a lake or pond, a moat, an ox, a pig, a plant, a rat, a river, rope, sand, the sea, a serpent, a tree, wine.

In any situation in which the character is exposed to the fated element, object, or thing at the fated time of day, they are subject to a Magical Attack of 2d6 + (d6 x rank/2). If that overcomes the character’s Magical Defence they are slain, if necessary by a freak accident. Conversely, if they survive, the close brush with death immediately restores their full Magic Points and Health Points scores.

The GM should bear in mind that dying because of a fish could include choking on a fish bone, for example. Further inspiration is available by looking at unusual demises in antiquity, in medieval times, and in the Renaissance. Or even these bizarre 17th century deaths. However, a character who is careful to guard against their fate should not be arbitrarily imperilled. Don’t say, “A horse bolts towards you out of nowhere and knocks you down.” In that example, the character should only risk their doom if they have voluntarily approached a horse or a stable at the preordained time, or if the situation makes an encounter with a horse reasonably likely.

The prophecy doesn't entirely protect the Doomed One from death by other means. If reduced to –3 Health Points in circumstances where their prophesied fate doesn’t apply, they are incapacitated but remain alive. The character can be healed and will recover consciousness when at positive health points but thereafter is a parolee of fate, having cheated death because of their prophecy, and recovers only 50% of their Magic Points each day until such time as they are faced with the preordained circumstances, whereupon they are challenged by the Magical Attack described above; if they survive that then their full sorcerous abilities are restored.

If reduced to –3 Health Points when the foretold cause (but not necessarily time) of death is present, the Doomed One is slain in a way that ensures the fulfilment of the prophecy. (‘She might have dodged that fatal blow if that darned cat hadn’t distracted her at the crucial moment.’) In those circumstances no Magical Attack resolution is needed.

If the Doomed One is slain in a manner that leaves no possibility of doubt – for example, incinerated in a furnace or sliced into small pieces – and the ordained cause is not involved, it is left to the GM’s ingenuity to contrive some way for the cause to take post-mortem effect. For example, the character’s coffin might be dropped in a river on the way to the churchyard, or the funeral procession might be held up by a runaway horse.

It goes without saying that a Doomed One should be careful to keep their prophesied fate a secret. The GM should not reveal it in front of other players until the circumstances apply, and even then conceal the precise details. If our example character is foolishly riding a horse in the afternoon, and the horse stumbles and throws him or her to the ground, the other player-characters won’t necessarily know if it was the tree root in the road or an insect bite on the horse’s rump or the horse itself that was to blame.

OK, look, if you really insist -- and don't say I didn't warn you -- here is part of the original manuscript of Adventure from 1980 in which Doomed Ones first appeared. It's mostly interesting for the glimpse of the Assassins rules, which I used when writing Out of the Shadows (DW book 4), but both Doomed Ones and Shamans (also in the excerpt) would probably have been dropped, at least in that form, if Adventure had ever come out.

Start by forgetting

We're starting a new roleplaying campaign tonight. It's being run by Oliver Johnson, co-creator of Dragon Warriors and Blood Sword, and he always brings a unique blend of innovative story background and palpable atmosphere to his games, so excitement among the players is high.

The player-characters will begin with no memory of who they are. That in itself isn't going to win any prizes for originality. I think I'll be playing in at least one other amnesia-driven game this year alone, and that's even if I can't get my hands on a copy of Alas Vegas, but when added to the GURPS character generation system, amnesia should make for a particularly interesting cocktail.

GURPS encourages you to flesh out the details of your character's backstory -- too much, in my view. I've seen much better (more interesting, more subtle, more convincing) characterization from players developing their characters from the inside, once the game begins. The design-at-start approach is a little too much of an authorial straitjacket. But how about if you begin knowing nothing about your past?

With Oliver's upcoming campaign, which is set in New Mexico in 1862, I originally had it in mind to play a gambler. But then I thought, well, how would I know I was a gambler? I'm dressed like a gambler, maybe. Perhaps I found a deck of cards in my pocket. But what does that prove? What if another player-character is wearing a tin star. He might be a sheriff, but there are other explanations.

Here's how Oliver himself put it:

"The more I sit here reading through the rules, the more I'm convinced that GURPS is the enemy of roleplaying, and only when handled in the lightest way can it aid rather than overwhelm the game. That was why I decided to start everyone as amnesiacs. I want people to interact and make up their stories on the spot and have some good roleplaying, rather than prescribe their characters through these arbitrary skills and advantages and disadvantages and overthought back stories -- which, instead of expanding the character, merely justify the aforesaid self-award of skills, advantages, etc."

If GURPS allowed for a little more uncertainty, there might be some of those discoveries Oliver is talking about. As it is, I still have to know a little bit too much about my character -- those pesky GURPS disadvantages force you to join the authorial dots and end up with the usual cartoonish characterization. But in a different rules system with a little more leeway the amnesia could become a wellspring of creative improvisation.

One option would be to give each player say 80 points to spend on basic attributes, advantages, and disadvantages. Arguably you would know those pretty much right away, memory loss or not. But you don't buy any skills at the start of the game. When called on to use a skill, you roll 3d to set a brevet value X for that one roll only. You then roll in the usual way using X as your skill level for that one roll only. If you succeed, that sets a minimum value for your (still unknown) level in that skill. If you fail, that sets a maximum value.

For example, you attempt a Stealth roll. First you roll 3d to get your brevet value. Let's say you get a 12. So now you attempt the skill roll as if you had a Stealth of 12. Say you roll 9 - okay, that means you know your actual Stealth value cannot be lower than 9. Or say you roll a 14 - that's a failure, which means your Stealth cannot be higher than 13. Over time you'll nest in on values for all the skills you use.

This brevet system for discovering your unknown skill levels is not greatly different from the way James Wallis's Fugue system generates characters' skills in the course of play, as astute readers will have spotted, but I'm looking for something that's compatible with GURPS -- and, because we want to keep playing an open-ended campaign that could last years, we'll need a bit more detail than just having a skill or not having it. Also I confess a slight allergy to RPG systems that co-opt the tarot, simply because so many of them these days do that.

Starting a GURPS game with no memory naturally rules out giving character design points for Allies, Enemies, Reputation, etc. Those are things you'll discover or acquire in play. But that's a much better way to handle them anyway, just as in stories it's better to show than to tell.