I managed to streamline 8 rules out of the basic modules on first pass – for an average of 18 rules per module. Not bad.

In the process, I decided to eliminate the Spell Maintenance perk. If a character REALLY needs to maintain at least three spells each round, he can take the new Bonus Action perk for Concentration (the skill that helps to maintain spells).

I mean, if all of your comrades are wearing magical armor that you created, someone failed to inspect the troops as they left garrison.

As I’m writing some guidance for the new GM chapter, I came to an interesting realization: magic items don’t belong in combat. Since that sounds pretty extreme, allow me to clarify. Modos RPG 1.4 has a category of items called “special equipment.” Many of these items allow a character to do things that would effectively raise the character’s level on a temporary or permanent basis. So having items like these in the game plays havoc with the Character Level rule, but since special equipment can be fun, I can’t just throw it out of the game. The solution is to limit what special equipment can do – mechanically. First, special equipment is dramatic, so its use should remain in the dramatic side of the game – with roleplaying and one-roll conflicts. However, if the situation calls for action-by-action shots, special equipment CAN make an appearance in extended conflict (or combat), but it can’t contribute to Progress. Instead, level balance is maintained if special equipment changes the landscape of an extended conflict: by imposing difficulty penalties or changing how postures behave.

For example, your level 2 character has an endless supply of grenades, which are similar to a level 3 or 4 power (spell) like Fire3. If your character could endlessly cast Fire3, that would make his level effectively 10 or higher, not level 2. So instead of going into an extended conflict with an endless supply of grenades, the GM asks you to use a one-roll conflict, with a Physical contest to attack the enemy biker gang. You add your Missile skill points and get a result of 14, saying you “pull two pins at the same time with your mouth and chuck them at the gang.” The GM says you got a Pro, and that “the gang members scatter, leaving their bikes behind to get blown up in a glorious fireball by your grenades.”

Alternatively, you could use your grenades in combat, but instead of causing Physical damage, their effect would be to prevent opponents from entering offensive posture, as an alternative to a Movement action.

These two examples show that character level can be preserved by using special equipment to add flavor to one-roll conflicts or to create options for using skills in extended conflict – instead of creating instant-win scenarios in combat.

First pass on the new table of contents is complete, and things are already looking interesting. It’s as if I’m not doing the writing, but watching some strange creature in the wild… Anyway, the new version should be a little more compact – some of the fat is trimmed – and there’s a secret chapter, as well as a grand finale built in. Let’s see what happens…

Last night, I somehow jumped ahead to the new modules chapter. I got started by thinking about what the character attributes in Final Fantasy IV were, somehow. Next thing I knew, I had written the concepts for three rules modules in about one hour. The fun part was realizing that a rules module isn’t a full conversion – you could just play the real thing for that – it’s just enough rules to give the right feel or taste to the game.

Example: the first thing that I realized about a Final Fantasy rules module was that characters basically have an unlimited carrying capacity. Then, I remembered how extensive their combat choices were, which are severely limited by today’s standards. And what’s at the end of combat for unlucky characters? Being Swooned. I’m guessing that when I translate this into rules catalog language, there won’t be more than two rules affected for each conceptual rule. Which should make the module easy to plug in, and fast to deliver to the game.