The content poll showed a definite bias towards culture information, but it’s not ready yet and I’ve had a busy week so what I can provide is something from one of the other high-vote sections: rules.
As I said in the content poll post, there won’t be anything definitive about rules in this or anything else in this series until we have concrete rules we’re happy to release. That said, here are our thoughts on combat calls.
There are a lot of combat calls out there. Some calls are more interesting than others, some are the same no matter the system, and others are different even though they have the same name.
No Rest for the Wicked, the first system written by Conflict Resolution LRP has nearly 50 different calls (including qualifiers like Mass and Global). That’s a lot of stuff to remember.
Stargate has 29 (plus 31 other feats you have to call when you use them), two of which are identical in name but very different in effect to No Rest for the Wicked.
Future’s End has 19. Empire has 10.
If you hadn’t guessed by now, we’re aiming more towards the Empire end of the scale than the No Rest end.
What we’re looking at for No Heaven are a collection of calls that are meaningful, hard to confuse, and don’t bloat the system. If a call doesn’t fit the thematic of the game or can be covered by appropriating an existing call, that’s what we’ll do instead.
With that in mind, the current count of calls stands at four (none of which are damage calls). Careful thought will be given before any more are added to the list and indeed before we publish any of the calls we intend to use.
Something that is lacking in this system compared to No Rest for the Wicked, Stargate, and Future’s End is numerical damage calls and that’s because all attacks in No Heaven do the same damage, regardless of the weapon or character wielding it.
The current end goal of the No Heaven combat call system is to reach a state where combat calls are only used in melee combat. The main reason for this is to reduce the amount of shouting in combat, and make sure that when a call is made the target knows about it. Calls are probably going to be something used sparingly but to great effect.