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Dalin · 03-11-2019, 06:27 AM

In Douglas Cole's recent Layout Update on the Citadel at Norðvorn Kickstarter, he mentioned another evocative Norðlond festival, Klifrið, where climbers try "to scale, without ropes or tools, as far up the gorge as they can manage." This made me think about the game mechanics of such a thing. I was surprised at how fun the basic climbing rules already are.

According to Exploits, p. 20, you roll vs. Climbing at -3 for a "vertical wall." If you fail, you get to roll DX to catch something and then make a ST-based Climbing roll to pull yourself back into position. This puts a skill and two attributes in play with the option of Extra Effort (p. 20) for the pull-up.

So you could just roll that and count the number of successes to see who wins. Since it sounds like there is water at the bottom of the gorge, most climbers aren't worrying about dying, so this seems reasonable.

If you wanted to have it get harder as you go, you could have an increasing penalty. (And/or charge FP for each success?) Would you tell the PC the penalty ahead of time? If so, this might simulate the way a climber can judge their own ability and turn back before they risk a serious fall. Would you ever apply penalties to the DX and ST rolls to recover? If not, the combination of high DX and ST makes it very unlikely that you could ever fall.

What about the aspect of planning a good route? Could there be an option of IQ-based Climbing affecting the penalty (perhaps slowing down its incremental increase)?

How would you run this?

03-11-2019, 06:27 AM	#1
Dalin Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Saint Paul, MN	Climbing contests In Douglas Cole's recent Layout Update on the Citadel at Norðvorn Kickstarter, he mentioned another evocative Norðlond festival, Klifrið, where climbers try "to scale, without ropes or tools, as far up the gorge as they can manage." This made me think about the game mechanics of such a thing. I was surprised at how fun the basic climbing rules already are. According to *Exploits*, p. 20, you roll vs. Climbing at -3 for a "vertical wall." If you fail, you get to roll DX to catch something and then make a ST-based Climbing roll to pull yourself back into position. This puts a skill and two attributes in play with the option of Extra Effort (p. 20) for the pull-up. So you could just roll that and count the number of successes to see who wins. Since it sounds like there is water at the bottom of the gorge, most climbers aren't worrying about dying, so this seems reasonable. If you wanted to have it get harder as you go, you could have an increasing penalty. (And/or charge FP for each success?) Would you tell the PC the penalty ahead of time? If so, this might simulate the way a climber can judge their own ability and turn back before they risk a serious fall. Would you ever apply penalties to the DX and ST rolls to recover? If not, the combination of high DX and ST makes it very unlikely that you could ever fall. What about the aspect of planning a good route? Could there be an option of IQ-based Climbing affecting the penalty (perhaps slowing down its incremental increase)? How would you run this?