Climbing contests

[Dalin]

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?

[DouglasCole]

There's a climbing challenge on pp. 47-48 of Hall of Judgment, for what it's worth.

I'd written some climbing rules using the concept of control points, but while the concept was sound, in play it was going to be a bunch of folks sitting around the table rolling dice. I still think the basic idea of "grappling" up a wall using climbing skill is sensible; I just need the right mechanic so it's not "five people sitting around the table endlessly rolling dice."

[Imbicatus]

It’s beyond the scope of the DFRPG, but I’ve had a lot of fun using the Chase rules from GURPS Action 2 for a climbing encounter. It wasn’t a contest but it was a jungle encounter where two rival groups (the pcs and their rivals) were both trying to outrun a very large dinosaur.

The chase rules allow multiple rolls, complementary skills, and the ability to have fun with it while not just devolving into five people endless rolling dice.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

There's a climbing challenge on pp. 47-48 of Hall of Judgment, for what it's worth.

I forgot about this challenge! I look forward to running it and seeing if anyone runs afoul of the God of Law's little wrinkle.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Imbicatus

The chase rules allow multiple rolls, complementary skills, and the ability to have fun with it while not just devolving into five people endless rolling dice.

Yup, the chase rules are where I turn every time I have a "two or more groups are competing in something where distance or time is a factor".

[Christopher R. Rice]

In a game I was running I created an entire (small) framework of rules for climbing a sheer cliff in Underhill. I REALLY need to put it on my blog because it worked pretty much perfectly and produced a lot of tension.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Imbicatus

It’s beyond the scope of the DFRPG, but I’ve had a lot of fun using the Chase rules from GURPS Action 2 for a climbing encounter. . . . The chase rules allow multiple rolls, complementary skills, and the ability to have fun with it while not just devolving into five people endless rolling dice.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Yup, the chase rules are where I turn every time I have a "two or more groups are competing in something where distance or time is a factor".

Great! I'll have to review those rules. I remember being impressed by them, but I haven't run an explicit Action game, so they faded into the background.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

In a game I was running I created an entire (small) framework of rules for climbing a sheer cliff in Underhill. I REALLY need to put it on my blog because it worked pretty much perfectly and produced a lot of tension.

I look forward to reading about this. Sounds fun!