Tournament of the Gods - Scoring

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

Stuff the crowd dose not like? The victor does not kill his opponent when the crowd gives a thumbs down. Of course, with a good Diplomacy check, he could turn this around. Que clip from "Gladiator".

Penalties for heavy armor. Less blood shows.

Bonus for tossing a soivanier to the crowd, like a helm, or what was in it.

Attitude. Show the ruler or whoever holds this spectacle some disrespect. Just enough to get noticed and remembered, not enough to get beheaded.

A new skill could be Read the Crowd. This would give you a clue to the crowds "stats". They could be disinterested, bloodthirsty, forgiving, ect. This would make each day a different "Person" to interact with and please. This could also be Sense Motive.

I think a lot of these checks should be opposed, and sucess or failure turns them into bonuses or penaties. Killing someone to quick could be bad for some, but when Kreagor the Killer comes out, everyone is hopping up and down for one hit decapitations.

 

[Magius del Cotto]

Good ideas, all, Jondor, but none of them really fit into the setting, for various reasons. Here's why:
1) No real "authority figure", at least not that the characters know of, so appealing to the crowd's dislike of them isn't going to work.
2) The system isn't affected by the crowd, which means appealing to it won't change your ranking.
3) Armor will be truly unique for each person, so even an upgrade from leather to dragonscale won't change their image too much. Again, it's a technical thing, so the more "impressive" armor is also the best.
Thanks for the suggestions, but it just wouldn't work with the setting that well. Anyways, keep the ideas coming.
BTB, I'll probably post up the system (with costs) in the House Rules forum once this gets underway.

 

[Magius del Cotto]

*bump*

Still looking for the good, the bad, and the ugly of scoring matches without changing the rules of D&D. Surely some of you guys have ideas.

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

I keep forgetting this one. We played a bastardization of D&D many years ago. A courtesy to a friend who needed play testing. Long story left out, he ostricised himself, and we made a bastardization of his game which was part board game, part life spanning adventure epic. It was mostly combat, with back story filled in as you progressed. Roughly speaking, we cut the XP awards to 9/10ths the actual. This allowed advancement, but scaled over time.