Systems & mechanics
by Martina
As the translation and illustration trudges forward, one of main tasks in our plan right now is to finalize implementation of rulesets you might play Kalusa in. You see, the Czech version was limited by the limited availability of rulesets translated to our language, so there had to be some compromises. We ended up with the 5e of The Game Which Must Not Be Named As Per The OGL, because, well, it is available everywhere.
However, classic fantasy d20 rules don't quite fit the stories I want to tell. Game designer Avery Adler perfectly summed up what I find lacking in traditional rule systems in her talk at AADL Game Con in 2024 – according to her, traditional games are built on the premise that “Visible heroic confrontation is what saves the day.” Here’s an example she gave:
If there's a community under the iron rule of the terrible evil Lich Lord and his Undead Legions, the way that hold will be loosened will not be through mutual aid; it will not be through healing that occurs intergenerationally; it will not be through the seeds of wisdom planted by a grandmother in her grandchild's ear. It will be through a small number of very powerful, very self-possessed individuals going out and taking physical concrete action, usually fighting, usually murder. That is how you overcome oppression within the context framework and rules of DnD. One could try to tell a different story; one could tell a story in which they seduce the evil Lich Lord, they become his betrothed, across the course of 15, 16, 17 years they slowly poison him against his own aims; but DnD isn't going to give them any support in telling that story.
Avery pointed out something I’d felt for a long time: that amazing, important, fulfilling goals (both personal and social) can actually be achieved in ways other than through grand, action-packed spectacles. For example, by volunteering to help someone and making a difference in my neighborhood. Or by befriending two opposing camps and helping to reconcile them. Or by gradually building up my political voice and network and eventually helping a politician push through a reform of flawed legislation. I would love to play these out at a table, but the framework that would help a GM adjucate such play is often missing. What do you do when your players don’t want to solve everything by rolling for initiative?
Well, in Kalusa, we have some special mechanics to facilitate that. For example, when your players meet the Kalusian factions, you follow their interactions on an influence tracker, which in turn shapes the setting. It’s not terribly precise, we don’t want to bog you down with complex tables or math – it’s an abstraction, in a same way the hit points are. But it allows players to influence the city by completing multiple small steps. We also have some framework to track long-term projects, to move the time forward in believable way, or to deal with actions your players want to take but might not be that interesting to actually play out. Now I don’t want to rule out action and thrilling direct confrontation, not at all! These can be really cool and make for great stories! Kalusa is basically one giant dungeon full of monsters, traps and treasure, if you look at it from the right angle! But I want to add some alternatives, so you can mix it up a bit. Experiment. Maybe play out something you haven’t played yet.
We deliberated for some time on how to implement all the necessary rules to a concise publication that would offer the most use for most people. In the end, we opted for kind of compromise – Kalusa: The Enchanted City will be published as two core volumes with mechanical framework for the social play, but system neutral otherwise. For that, we will publish multiple booklets with statblocks and such for different games. We already have one for 5e, of course, then there is a custom hack of Blades in the Dark I played the final stretch of playtests in, and other implementations are being worked on, for example Savage Worlds. And if there is a ruleset you would like to play Kalusa in, come tell us on our discord! We have a lot of work ahead so I am not promising anything, but we are curious!