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Just how does WOV work?
Or not work in some cases. Yes, WOV is not perfect, but it's dang fun!
OK, so here are the nuts and bolts. Characters have basic stats HP (hit points), MP (magic points), AC (armor class), Str (strength), Dex (dexterity), Agi (agility), Int (intelligence), Chr (charisma) and Spd (speed). Hit points are your life, the more you have, the more damage you can take before dying. Spells cost magic points, so the more you have, the more spells you can cast. Armor class goes down as you get better armor. You add your armor class to the amount of damage you take. (So if you aren't wearing armor it's possible that you will take more damage because you will have a positive AC value as opposed to a negative value which would lower the amount of damage you take.)
Strength determines how much damage you can deal with a given weapon. Dexterity is how good you are with your hands and thus determines how well you can actually hit an opponent. Agility is how well you dodge and move your body. Another word for it might be nimble. Intelligence will play into situations like figuring out puzzles (at GM discretion of course), figuring out languages and also spell casting. The higher your intelligence, the easier it is to cast spells and thus it takes less MP. Charisma is basically a role-playing help. High charisma makes you a likeable character and low makes you a non-likeable character. This is useful if you are trying to convince others of something or just don't know how you want to play your character. Speed is how fast you run and determines how far you can move in a round. We separated agility and speed because we feel that you could be very fast in a straight run, but not very good at dodging weapons.
Players also earn experience for different things they do. Fighting is not the only way to earn experience. Some GM's give experience for good role-playing, researching spells, detecting or setting traps, etc. based on what your character is like. There are 14 levels of experience and 7 levels of spells. Most wizards gain a spell level every other experience level. (Nobody has ever legitimately made it past level 9 that I know of. It gives you something to strive for!) At each level up you get more of each stat except for Int, Chr and Spd (well, wizards get Int, but only to a point). This lets you get progressively tougher as you go along.
Other characteristics of players include age, weight, height, gender, hobbies and proficiencies. Hobbies are just things you like to do and proficiencies help you get better at certain weapons. Hopefully the other stuff is self-explanatory.
As of now there are 14 races and 25 classes that you can choose. (Giving a total of 350 different combinations for those math junkies out there!) Races are just that and classes are basically your profession of hero. You could be a fighter, thief or magic user type of character. There are many different kinds of both races (Centaurs, Elves, Humans, etc.) and classes (Warriors, Martial Artists, Priests, Rangers, Trap Makers, etc.) but I'll let you get the books to find out what they all are! Each race and class have different choices for proficiencies and different bonuses to their basic stats.
There are three basic types of armor: body, helmet and shield. You can get lots of other stuff if you want it, but most of it is assumed in the body armor. Weapons have a Weapon Power (how much damage) and a Hit Percent (how often you hit) which are averaged with your Str and Dex. There are a couple of balancer numbers are then combined with this so lower level guys don't just kill each other. To attack you use 2d6, one is a hit die and the other considered the damage die. There are different types of weapons (bladed, blunt, missile, two-handed, etc.) that affect things. For example missile weapons have a range for attack and if you're using a two-handed weapon you can't use a shield.
As for spells, there is a huge common spell chart that is known throughout Onin readily available to be learned for the right price. There are also lists of several other spells that other people of made-up that could be used if researched by an individual and approved by the GM. It is generally accepted that it is very difficult to learn a spell outside of your general sphere of magic. For example, it would be really hard for a White Wizard to learn Black Wizard only spells, even if researched forever. (However there was one wizard who learned all the spells white, red and black. You'll have to read the history to find out who!) Generally there are damage, healing, boosting and neat stuff type spells. (Neat stuff meaning anything from teleporting to opening doors from afar.)
That's basically it for the game. Almost everything else is determined by the GM at the time of play. (We did provide a brief list of percents for certain things that GM's could use as a guide line, but that's all it is and there are very few numbers there.) One of the big things we wanted when designing this game was to not interrupt game flow. Hence, the GM decides almost everything on the spot. Yes, you have to be a good GM to do this, but that's what we are trying to encourage. Usually the only thing that interrupts play is when players have to look up spells. Even then most players know how much their basic spells cost and what they do after the first couple of times they cast it.
Common Complaints
One common complaint is the difference between really agile and really not agile characters. Some characters will get hit every time and others will never get hit. There are a couple of balances though: a 6 on the hit die is an automatic hit and a 1 is an automatic miss. This gives roughly a 17% chance (which is significant) of being hit even if you're agile or not being hit even if you're not agile. Characters that are really agile usually don't have good armor or high HP, therefore when they are hit, it really hurts. The reverse is also true. Characters with low agility usually have high HP and really good armor, therefore they can take lots of damage and deal it back in return. The automatics help balance things, but another solution is often overlooked by GM's: parties. If GM's would attack a person in mass and surround, they couldn't get away. Or not even attack, just bum-rush them and hold them to the floor and attack while they are held. Another solution is to use magic users who hit not matter what the other character's agility is.
Another "problem" some people have is that there is not much difference between weapons by the time you get to level 5 or so. This is true, there is not a large number spread of Weapon Power or Hit Percent, but the idea behind this is that at lower levels there may be a big difference between a huge sword and a dagger. However, if a high level hero is proficient with a dirk, they probably stand a decent chance against a guy with a sword simply because they really know how to use that weapon. There IS a big difference between using a proficient weapon and a non-proficient weapon. Most players concentrate on a few weapons and get really good at them and upgrade them and such.
A third complaint is that there is no weight for items and armor and such. We decided to make it much easier by just setting a limit to the number of items you could carry. We want to make it realistic, but quite frankly, I'd rather have fun than be real. If you want real you may consider joining a Dagohir type club. We also assume that you always have food and water, except in extreme instances at GM discretion, to help simplify things.
Lastly people say there isn't enough cool stuff. We have provided a list of many spells, items, magic items, artifacts (unique magic items) and more in the books. I'm glad that people want more, so do I, but it is simply not worth the cost of publishing several pages of items and such that simply differ in how they deal the damage. Instead we encourage all players to make up whatever they want and take it to their GM. An item that I may not approve in a game your GM may, and vice versa.
Lastly there has been a complaint that travel times on Onin shift depending on the GM's mood. True. We did provide a scale on the latest version of the map of Onin to give you some perspective, however, due to Onin's turning about the Whirling Vortex (read the book) there are differences in the amount of time it takes to move different places. This was intentional to allow flexibility to GM's and usually GM's will use this to make the game more fun rather than a punitive measure for stupid players (although it has been used that way.)
OK! I think that's pretty much the basics and I hope that gives more of an idea of how WOV is played. Please check out the books and email me if you would like to order them. Even if you don't live in the Charleston, IL area, we can get you the stuff. Please contact me if you're interested!
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