"Hey! This shit you giving me Lego-lised?" (The Crazy Origin of 4grid)

Hi all,

Our first DW 1.05 Play-Test session is scheduled for this Saturday night, and there will be many new ideas that will be thrown in and judged on the gaming table. Whether it makes it to the final version next month in the world of Legend depends on a few factors.

Is the new idea practical time-wise? Does it make game-play fairer and allows for more options? And most importantly, is it more fun than its predecessor?

Let's take an example. The 4grid System is a huge undertaking for a game like DW, which historically does not play with a grid-based system. Fight scenes are voiced out and actions imagined, and distance in an encounter gauged to the best of one's ability or memory. Dramatic scenes need not be measured in terms of squares and meters, so long as the action builds up and moves towards a climatic ending.

The rule-book did mention that figurines can be used to help visually locate one's location in the combat field or position in the party's battle order. That got me thinking.

What if I tried to mesh the best of both worlds? What if i tried to incorporate figurines and simple grid movement rules in combat, while still trying to follow the dramatic build-up of a great combat sequence? To achieve that, I realised that I would have to make sure the rules are flexible enough for me to bend it when the story wants it to; when circumstances make it happen that hard and fast rules are second best.

My mind worked overtime. I had to go a bit crazy. Stick with the grid movement rules but make it grid-less. WHAT? No-no-no. Don't worry. What if I use a crude ruler of sorts? There will be a semblance of measurement, some sort of uniformity, just like a regular tabletop war-game. Figurines will move to a designated point marked by the ruler depending on the Move Action he chooses, and then get to pick a Combat Action when there.

Any doubts about distance? Look at the battlefield and allow common sense to take over. If a character looks close enough to an enemy, he can attack it. If one tries to move away and an enemy looks close enough to counter with an Opportunity Attack, make it happen.

In DW, rules are there for guidance, the rest is up to players and GMs to provide logic and a context for them. The 4grid system was designed to do just that.

Now, I just have to find a battlefield suitable for it. Boom.

The 4grid System Lego-Style.~

"Why Lego?", you might ask.

1. It is classy. (Read: EXPENSIVE)
2. The pieces are of really good quality.
3. Versatility - A huge choice of pieces, all interchangeable, and any sort of custom terrain can be built up with the right Lego blocks.
4. They give a "it is just a toy, how could it be taken seriously?!" feel, which facilitates the bending of some rules that is needed at times.
5. I personally think that it is not just a toy, and would love to integrate it into a working version of a Lego-lised Base Plate Combat System.
6. It is goddamn cool.

Six reasons to mix it up with the best. As you can see in the photo, the 4grid Ruler is made up of four pieces of two-pip Lego flat blocks. One section of the ruler constitutes a SHIFT. Half of the ruler represents a RUN. The whole ruler? - CHARGGGGGE!

 Rogue closing in on the Charge Bar.

Result? Poetry on the pip-grid Lego base plate.

This is the basis of the 4grid System. Simple, and I hope - effective enough to be played in our DW campaigns. If there ever was a role-playing system that was made for this, DW is top of the list due to the fact that it did not ORIGINALLY need a battlefield in the first place.

C'yall on the flip pip side.

P/S: Props to Shane (Our Assassin it seems) for supporting 4grid by sponsoring some pieces and figurines.~