dSection: And Then I Take My Turn...

So, hi. That went nowhere fast. One weekend, I was at a con, then I came down with a case of "con crud", and the next week, I was off at a hospital helping to install and run tech support for my company's software. Now I'm back! Let's hope that I don't stay away quite so long next time. This time around, I'm covering Hollowpoint's unique initiative system, looking at how it encourages quick, violent action. As before: this is NOT playtested, and is possibly horrendously out-of-balance because it whacks up some core ideas in the game. I tinker; it's what I do with this post. Tinkering with things generally makes them blow up.

dSection: Escalate! Escalate! Escalaaaaaaaate!

I am so sorry for the horrid pun. "dSection" is an idea that I had a while back that I'll probably carry out for a few posts. My intention is to have a series of posts where I delve into various games, dissect out an element from a game's rules system, and then discuss how to apply it back into D&D, as a model for how to do it with a more traditional game. I'm doing that because D&D is a nice baseline that everyone in the hobby knows and can relate to. For the debut, I'm gonna take a closer look at part of Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard. As one last note: this has not been playtested in any way. Mostly, it's my mulling over an idea. So take that into account if you've got critiques; this is more about the base idea, and not the details.