Tomboy Island

Flowers blossomed, one larger than the last, as they made their way up the mound. At the highest point, a white bud rose. It remained closed as it pushed upwards, only unfurling once it was a good three metres up from the already elevated tip of the mound. The petals, each longer than Alex’s arm, created a welcome shade.

“You need to get the reward for me,” Jane groaned, slowly coming down from her sex-high. “My legs aren’t quite back yet.”

“I don’t know if that can support my weight… Astrid? Could you?”

“Could I wha—--- flower!” Astrid had diligently stayed on the lookout and only noticed what they had created now. “That is a big flower… you want me to climb on top?”

“If you can,” Alex challenged her.

“Bro… come on,” the tomboy smacked her flat midriff and then stepped up close. Alex loved to watch her pass. The Swedish blonde had a delicious backside. It looked just fantastic when she walked through the freshly grown bushes and jiggled pleasantly while she moved her sweat-glistening curves up the stalk.

It bent slightly from her weight. There were no leaves that forked off the main stem, so Astrid had to wrap her limbs around the whole stem and then inch her way up. Once she got a good grasp on the head of the flower, she pulled herself up and through the cover of white leaves. She disappeared from view. A moment later, he heard grunting.

“Astrid?” Alex shouted. One could never be cautious enough when it came to weird magical flowers.

“All good!” she shouted back. “Just… pulling this thing out from under the pollen!”

Spoiler

-Voting closed - 9 voters

[I'll decide on the exact details of the combat Perk once we put the new Combat system to the test.]

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One more sound of struggle, then something snapped. Alex followed his intuition and stepped forwards. He blinked against the sun, put up his arms and caught the falling blonde. “I got you,” he said with a smirk.

“Never doubted it,” the tomboy answered with a grin. She probably would have bopped him on the nose too, had it not been for the item in her hand.

It was a bow, that was immediately obvious. Not just any plain kind of bow, either, but the fantastically slender and ornate type that Alex would have regarded as a prop for Lord of the Rings. Astrid was put down and she handed the bow over to the archer.

Jane took it with the usual stoic expression on her face. She grabbed the knotted wood by the ends of the curve and gave it a few testing flexes. She nodded, turned the bow into firing position, then pulled the string back. The muscles on her back tensed and flexed from the tension. After a moment, she relaxed again. “It’s decent.”

“High praises,” Astrid remarked.

“Is it?” Amethyst chimed in. “I was under the impression ‘decent’ means ‘middling’?”

“Not when it comes from Jane, then it means it’s according to her expectations, which are very high.”

“Low expectations are rewarded with disappointing outcomes,” Jane answered and got up. He hadn’t pounded her for long or hard enough to knock her legs out completely. “I’ll need to make arrows.”

“How are these?” Alex asked and grabbed a handful of suspiciously straight sticks from in-between the oversized flowers.

Jane looked at them, then nodded. They were just sticks with a groove at the end and a sharp-ish end, nothing too impressive, but it would do. The redhead could only carry so many in her hands, but just one arrow in the hands of an Olympic archer was already a deadly threat at considerable range.

A new armament with them, the party waited for Alex to decide where to go next.

Spoiler

Dice: 1d100

31 = 31

Choices -Voting closed - 6 voters

Choices -Voting closed - 6 voters

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It was going to be a hot day, Alex could already feel that in the air and they were still in the morning hours. “Let’s explore the shore before the sun gets unbearable,” he decided and led the way as he usually did.

They had a pleasant walk and talk for a while, just feeling the ground under their feet. The edge of the island was quickly found again and they followed it. There were no notable beaches this time around. Most of this stretch was grass and dirt, elevated enough from the softly moving ocean that it was save from the waves. Perhaps it was that environment that made it so attractive to the creature they eventually encountered.

It was a big body of grey fur. Seeing a huge creature move was alarming immediately. Big round ears perked up and the animal turned towards them. Alex relaxed minorly when he saw whiskers quiver and black eyes stare. This creature was very much alive, unrelated to the Death Willow. However, it was also equipped with massive incisors.

It was a rat the size of a pony.

Its little nose quivered a couple of times. The oversized animal dashed up and down in front of them, prowling like a hyperactive wolf, before deciding to charge straight at the party.

“Why is the wild life so aggressive?” Alex groaned and raised his sword.

Spoiler

[Alright, welcome to the new combat system.

First, let me show you a slider.

This here is the representation of the flow of the combat. You have Alex on one side and his enemy on the other. Should there be multiple enemies, they will be abstracted into a singular entity for the purpose of this system. Similarly, any tomboys that have ways to weigh in on combat (which will be all of them eventually) will be simply part of Alex’s side.

This system runs on two simple Stats: Health and Poise.

Health for Alex, as before, has its maximum set equal to Alex’s level (although Perks may adjust that scaling now that it is going to be more important). Health not only represent Alex’s overall lifeforce but also his stamina in this case. Same is true for the enemies, who will Health values of whatever I deem appropriate.

Poise is the new part of this system. Poise damage is the bar currently set to 0 for both sides. Let me fill them up just for the visual for a moment.

Now, as you can see, despite having almost the same Poise value at the moment, the Giant Rat’s bar is full while Alex’s bar is only halfway there. This is because the maximum amount of Poise damage a person can sustain is equal to their Health.

Important to note here is that the Poise damage goes UP. It is not a resource you start with that then diminishes as damage is taken. This is because, by the design of the system, both Health and Poise can be targeted. The logic there is as follows:

Strength tactics are the best at dealing Health damage, representing brute forcing the enemy down.

Mental tactics are for going for a mixture of Health and Poise damage, representing targeting an enemy’s weak spots.

Social tactics are going for Poise damage primarily, representing feints, tricks, and other posture ruining tactics.

A fight is won when the Poise damage exceeds the Health threshold. You can beat an enemy down so their Health goes to 0, which automatically wins you the fight because they have no Poise left, you can go for a precision tactic, stacking Poise damage until the enemy is opened up for a lethal blow, or you can mix the two in whatever balance you find best.

This is not intended to be the pinnacle of game design. It’s still a fairly simple system, but it should introduce some variety into enemy types that reward going for brute forcing sometimes and more precise tactics at another.

Now, one very important part of this system is that there are NO LONGER CONTESTED ROLLS. I want to reiterate: ROLLS ARE NO LONGER CONTESTED. Both Alex and his opponent roll for their individual battle action. This means that it is no longer a binary of getting hurt or not, both sides can suffer or not suffer in the same round.

Actually, as I type this out, that means I should add an Armour Class thingy to have a DC the sides need to roll against on the sheet… so let me just add that very quick…

There we are. The Base AC is equal to his level for Alex and whatever I think is best for enemies. The AC is further modified by whatever is the choice of attack. Choosing a Strength tactic means the enemy uses their Strength in addition to the base AC, Mental tactic means Mental defence, etc.

Overall, this is intended to create some of the usual gaming tropes. Versus big enemies with a lot of HP and low AC, it's usually best to go for swiftly accrued poise damage. Versus small enemies with little HP and high AC, going for a decisive strike to the HP should be more beneficial and then anything in between.

Alex rolls first every round unless he was ambushed that fight, in which case he goes second on all rounds until the fight stabilizes.

Poise damage is gone for free after an encounter, but HP damage sticks. A set amount of HP is recovered at the end of the day, which can be further boosted by using Alex’s dream action. Perks and Items can also recover HP at any point.

In summary, the goals of this system are:

• Low resolution combat system
• Enough depth to mix up strategies against specific enemies
• Enabling builds that are more than “number go up”
• Have it so taking several combat encounters in a row is actually threatening due to accumulated damage

Now, onto the trial!]

-Voting closed - 8 voters

Dice: 3d100+24

Options: Individual. Threshold: 25.

98,78,65 + 24 = 122,102,89 (3 successes!)

Right, so that's 4 degrees of success, 25/50/75/100, which means Alex deals 4 HP damage in addition to the 2 of the sword…

So my tutorial encounter get oneshot, cool.

[Oh, to avoid confusion: enemies don't get to act on the round if they die.]

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The rat galloped across the divide, a moving bolt of grey fur and hatred. It squeaked and squawked menacingly, its massive teeth exposed. One bite could take the arm off a man, if properly placed.

Jane readied an arrow, Amethyst and Astrid looked for something throw, and Alex… Alex took a confident step forwards.

Holding the sword low, tip pointed backwards, he waited. He waited until the creature got close and then swung with all of his Titanic might.

The sword turned the lunging rat into blood and gore, fanning outwards in the direction of Alex’s swing. The head of the monster, split down the open maw, tumbled through the air. Alex made eye contact with it in its last moment. The rat was confused. Then, it was dead. The severed skull bounced along the raining bits of flesh.

Alex lowered the sword slowly and exhaled. His shoulders dropped, tension leaving him. Pleased, he nodded to himself. “Alright, that crab wasn’t a fluke,” he said and smiled at the woman behind him.

They were stunned, causing him to scratch his chin awkwardly. There was only so much he could play off cool.

Amethyst came back to the surface first. “Breed! Me!” The slime woman threw herself at him. Luckily too large and heavy to be imbalanced by a fully grown female, even a liquid one, Alex nonetheless rammed his sword into the ground to hold onto while the purple-blue fantasy creature showered him in kisses. “Supreme mongre- Master, your prowess remains forever true! I will be your servant and sleeve eternally, as you provide me with supreme seed!”

“All of that, only a little less religiously,” Jane stated, only now realizing she still had the bowstring pulled. “Seriously, dude, that was pretty decent.”

“Decent?!” Astrid laughed. “Bro, that was awesome! Come on, Jane, get that stick out of your rear for a moment and say awesome.”

“...It was pretty awesome,” the redhead admitted.

“Yeah!” Astrid made her way over to join Amethyst in delivering all of the kisses.

They probably would have done a lot more, if it hadn’t been for a stray gust of wind that carried the scent of the very exposed guts of the dead rat over to them. Noses crinkled and the erotic mood was diminished enough to remind them that they were out under a rising sun.

It was time to relocate.

Spoiler

Choices -Voting closed - 7 voters

Dice: 1d100

57 = 57

Nothing much happens

Choices -Voting closed - 9 voters

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Alex opted to just go further down the coast. It was getting hotter and hotter, but it was not yet unbearable still. As long as they stayed near the pleasant ocean breezes, they could survive another hour.

“So… okay, I have to ask this!” Astrid’s declaration grabbed the general attention of the group as they were wandering. “Amethyst, what’s it like being… not human? I hope that’s not rude!”

Amethyst chuckled and smirked. “Do I look so inhuman?” she asked teasingly. When Astrid waved about in denial, the slime woman laughed louder. “I am just messing with you, sister in love,” she assured, reminding Alex that, for all of her veneration, the supernatural being was a tomboy in her own way. “I don’t quite know how to answer that. I’ll put aside the philosophical ramblings of what qualifies as human… in which case, I suppose I envy your solidness?”

“You do?” Jane asked with a raised eyebrow. “You don’t have to search for comfortable sleeping positions.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Amethyst surrendered with a thoughtful hum. “But when I eat solids, they unseemly float around inside me until they dissolve.”

Alex had noted that before, but not commented on it. Amethyst did not eat much in the first place, subsisting almost entirely off of water. When she did have a nibble of meat or fruit, it was usually gone within thirty minutes.

“I think your way of digestion is more convenient,” Jane said.

“Let’s not talk about poop,” Astrid groaned. “That’s not why I asked! It’s just… you’re the only truly magical thing that answers questions. Most stuff is either aggressive, doesn’t talk, or only talks to Alex in riddles or short sentences.”

“Fairies are weird like that,” the man of the islands grunted.

“Yeah! And I would know!” Astrid pointed down her back with her thumb. “I’m turning into one, which is weird, but you being slime is weirder… in the good sense.”

“I always assume compliment from my fellow haremettes.” Amethyst scratched her chin in thought. Her expression changed from contemplative to deeply annoyed. “There are… answers I should have but I don’t,” she confessed. “The process of becoming a being of reason has blocked me from much of my esoteric knowledge. I don’t quite remember what it was like being a pond spirit, because being a pond spirit itself makes memory obsolete.” She spoke with a growing strain to her voice now. “Memory is useful to analyse and as a creature of magic you do not analyse… that is what separates what I was from humans, from what I am now?” She shook her head. “That is as much as I can say on the matter.”

“I think I get it?” Astrid said.

“It is logic that made humanity what it is today,” Jane analysed, “but we lost something in the process…”

“...something we are rediscovering here,” Alex finished the thought. “Or maybe it is rediscovering us.”

“I cannot quite tell you,” Amethyst apologized. “All I know is we aren’t so different now. I love Master and banter, that about sums everyone up, doesn’t it?”

“Man, we are shallow,” Astrid laughed.

“Speak for yourself,” Jane drawled, a smile around the corners of her red lips.

And the march continued.

Spoiler

Choices -Voting closed - 8 voters

Dice: 1d100

96 = 96

Pretty great roll

-Voting closed - 10 voters

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