From watching the Mazes and Monsters movie, we’ve managed to glean a lot of the rules: adventure structure (a maze with a single end boss), a spell system (spell points), and a handful of races, classes, monsters, spells, and items.

We’re almost ready to hammer our Mazes and Monsters rules into a complete game! But before we publish, there’s a couple of tiny rules we need to figure out.

Notably missing: AN ACTION RESOLUTION MECHANIC and A COMBAT SYSTEM. All the times that Tom Hanks stabbed a pretend lizard, we never got the needed play-by-play from a Maze Controller. How hard would it have been to have Jay Jay voiceover, “The lizard rolls an 11! He misses! Tom rolls a 4 on his counterattack!”

Today let’s work on the Action Resolution Mechanic. We’ll save the combat system for next week.

For reference, here’s Iglacia the fighter’s character sheet. We can refer to this as we work out our rules.

RONA

So far, we know that most actions are resolved by rolling exploding d12s and trying to hit a target number called a RONA (Roll-Over Number for Accomplishment). We are using a somewhat peculiar exploding-die mechanism: rolls of 1-10 are treated normally, while 12 is a critical success (add 10, roll again), and 11 is a critical failure (originally, I said that you rerolled and subtracted your new roll, but let’s simplify it to “subtract 10, roll again).

We also know that characters don’t have numeric stats: Iglacia has “courage”, for instance, not “courage 12”. Therefore, we probably don’t use a D&D-like system where stat bonuses are added to a die roll.
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I said I’d wrap up Mazes and Monsters today, but there’s just TOO MUCH GOOD MATERIAL in this movie. Every word falls from these kids’ mouths like gold coins from the mouth of the girl in that one fairy tale. The fairly tale with the frogs, maybe? I believe Tom Hanks is the frog in this analogy. The point of the analogy, in case you’ve forgotten it, is that it will take me two weeks to finish extracting game material from Mazes and Monsters.

I should have learned by now that when it comes to blogging Mazes and Monsters, I should always double my initial estimates. I originally thought this would be a 6-post series. It looks now like it will be at least 16 posts, and maybe something like 20,000 words. And I’m only scratching the surface of what could be done! Mazes and Monsters is a game so different from other RPGs of its time that a company could devote a whole product line to it. It really merits expansions, modules, a line of paper minis, and a Saturday morning cartoon with Vin Diesel as the voice of Tom Hanks. And vice versa!

I’ll do one more week of recap, and then maybe a week or two where we can grapple with some unresolved rules questions, like “What exactly is the combat system?” My hope is to make available a PDF of the complete game system by Christmas!

Now on to the recap:

Last time, we followed Tom Hanks on his murderous rampage through Manhattan. This time, his friends have figured out that Hanks’ map bearing the legend “The Two Towers” isn’t a Tolkien reference: it refers to WTC. That means we get a cringe-inducing chase through the Twin Towers, that goes on forever. Seriously, I think Hanks and his friends visit every floor. It’s like that interminable part of Final Fantasy VII inside the Shinra building, except more boring and uncomfortable.

Tom Hanks’ friends finally corner him on the roof just as he is about to jump off.

JJ: Pardieux, what are you doing?
Hanks: I’m going to join the Great Hall!
Blondie: (with infinite guile) You can’t! It’s a trap!
Hanks: I have spells! I’m going to fly!
JJ: You don’t have enough points! I am the maze controller, and i have absolute authority in this game.

POINTS! Confirmation that Mazes and Monsters uses a spell point system. Could Gary Gygax’s DMG reference to alternate game systems, with their cumbersome spell-point mechanics, have been targeted at Mazes and Monsters?

Sadly, since we’ve mostly seen Iglacia the fighter’s character sheet, we don’t have any idea what the scale is for spell points. We saw Tom Hank’s character sheet, but it was a childish chickenscratch scrawl. So we’ll have to guess.

Based solely on the fact that Iglacia had 181 Hit Points at level 9, let’s say that Spell Points are in the ballpark of 20 points per level. So at level 9, Pardieux the Holy Man can’t cast Fly. Of course, he may have already used up some of his Points: on that failed spell against the thugs, for instance. (What was that spell? It seemed to involve flower petals. Maybe it was a Wizard of Oz-inspired sleep spell.)

Why do Holy Men get 20 points per level, and not, say, 10? Maybe spells cost around 10 points per level, and the design intent is that spellcasters can cast 2 spells of the highest level during an adventure, or multiple lesser spells. Maybe less-powerful casters get less points.

Spell Points
Characters find magical Spells, Tricks, and Powers during maze exploration. These spells can be used over and over again – they are not used up. The characters, however, have a limited capacity to cast these spells represented by Spell Points.

Holy Men gain 20 Spell Points per level. Frenetics gain 10 per level. Fighters don’t gain Spell Points and thus cannot use Spells, Tricks, or Powers.

When characters cast a spell, the spell’s cost is deducted from their Spell Point total. Spell Points regenerate to their maximum value only after characters leave the maze forever. (There may be other items and features, like magical springs or bitter roots, that restore spell points as well. This is up to the discretion of the Maze Controller.

With this info, we can start slotting in spells. We’ve seen Fly; we’ve theorized Sleep; and earlier, Tom Hanks failed at casting a Raise Dead spell.

Spells

Sleep: Level 9. Cost: 90 SP. A single subject must make a RONA check or fall unconscious. (The points are spent whether or not the subject is affected.) This is a favored spell of Holy Men and others who prefer to resolve combats without bloodshed.

Fly: Level 10. Cost: 100 SP. The caster, or another character of his choice, is able to fly for the next hour.

A flying character who takes off from a sufficiently high point (at least 1300 feet off the ground) who flies straight up for the entire hour can reach Heaven.

Raise Dead: Restores a dead person to life. It only works for a short period after the person’s death; after that, you need to fly to Heaven to find them.

Next week, Tom Hank’s magnificent monologue, in which he delivers a performance on par with Skeletor’s monologue from “Masters of the Universe!”

After Tom Hanks’ disappearance, his three friends are interviewed separately by a scary detective, who seems intent on trapping them in an admission that they play Mazes and Monsters. They’re perfectly willing to sell Hanks up the Mazes and Monsters river, though. They claim that he played with a Mazes and Monsters group whose identities are shrouded in mystery.

Detective: Who’d he play with?
Kate: I – I don’t know. He never talked about that part of it. … I don’t think he really realized how dangerous the game was.
Detective: (significant pause) Was Robbie a doper?

Finally the Detective explains his theory about Hanks’ disappearance.

Detective: One of the players that Robbie played with… got carried away and killed him.
Blondie: That’s kind of far out.
Detective: Mazes and Monsters is a far out game. Swords… poison… spells… battles… maiming, killing…
Blondie: Hey, it’s all in the imagination!
Detective: Is it…?

We’re so lucky that the Detective knows so much about Mazes and Monsters game rules!

Introduction
Mazes and Monsters is a far out game.

Equipment
Poison: Applied to a weapon or to food or drink, Poison instantly kills the subject with no possibility of survival. Similar to Traps, the Maze Controller is obligated to give the following disclaimer to the players about any poisoned – or potentially poisoned – item: “Be wary: it may be harmless… but it may be poisoned.”

Maiming
Whenever a character is hit, the Maze Controller should roll a d12. On a roll of 1, the character is Maimed. The Maze Controller should roll again on the Maim Subtable.

Maim Subtable
1: The character is instantly killed.
2: Loses a hand or arm.
3: Loses a foot or leg.
4: Loses an eye.
5-6: Facial disfigurement. Character takes -2 on all Charm spells.
7-8: Concussion. Character is Mazed.
9-11: Permanent scar; character looks awesome. No other effect.
12: Flesh wound: Character got lucky… this time. No effect.

In the next scene, we’ve finally caught up with the beginning of the movie, which, as you remember, started with a bunch of cops and reporters gathered around the entrance of Pequod Caverns. They’re looking for a missing Mazes and Monsters player who’s lost in the caves. This is the moment that’s been foreshadowed for the whole movie: cave jaunt after cave jaunt has promised us tragedy, only to deliver anticlimactic safety. And… that’s what happens again. After the search for Hanks in the cave turns up empty, we see Hanks stumbling through Times Square, looking lost, confused, dazzled – just like every other Times Square tourist, in other words. Tom Hanks isn’t in Pequod Caverns at all!

So the whole uproar at the caverns was for nothing. It’s almost as if the message of the movie is that clueless adults are creating a media frenzy based on misinformation and speculation, and that you can’t trust reporters and writers to get their facts straight before they propagate panicked jeremiads. But of course, that’s not the case. Mazes and Monsters IS dangerous. Just look what happened to Tom Hanks.

Hanks’ friends decide that since the cops haven’t found anything, they’ll have to find Hanks themselves, using their GAME SKILLS.

Kate decides that “The Great Hall” isn’t a place – it’s a person! Hanks’ little brother ran away to New York City on a Halloween past, and he was named Hall.

By the way, here’s how popular “Hall” is as a first name. Not very popular. Its best year was 1881 where .007% of boys were named Hall.

Also Kate didn’t really use her GAME SKILLS to remember that fact, unless “game skills” and “knowledge of Tom Hanks” are synonymous, which, in a way, maybe they are. After all, you can’t write a real history of RPGs without frequently mentioning Tom Hanks. My RPG group did enjoy many sessions of FASA’s ‘burbrun, and who can forget the hit White Wolf scored with Joe: The Volcano?

While Kate recreates Tom Hank’s family tree, the boys apply game logic to determine his next move:

JJ: Where would a Holy Man go?
Blondie: (thinking with visible effort, then having a Thought) On a quest!
JJ: Exactly!

Holy Men go on quests.

More precisely, Holy Men go on quests to New York.

Next week, we’ll catch up with Tom Hanks in the Big Apple. Will his spells be enough to defeat these goofy New York hoodlums?

Jay Jay is throwing a Halloween party! Jay Jay is dressed as Noel Coward. Blondie is a naval officer. Kate is, uh, the naval officer’s girlfriend? (I forgot to mention, Blondie and Kate hooked up at the end of the last scene.)

The party also contains Frankensteins, maids, Darth Vaders, and pirates. (No mummies. Too bad. A mummy is, like, the easiest Halloween costume. All you need is gauze, or, in a pinch, toilet paper.) Everyone is bopping to generic 80s party music, except Tom Hanks, who is stalking through the party with the spooky asceticism of one who has been visited by the Great Hall. Hanks is dressed like a Holy Man. But it’s NOT A COSTUME.

Hanks leaves the party and closes the door. He lays his hand on the door in a mystic gesture.

This peculiar gesture is undoubtedly some Holy Man spell, meant to prevent his friends from following him.

Spells

Lock Portal: By laying his hand on a door, a Holy Man can lock it for a few hours. Anyone who tries to force the door or open it with a key must succeed on a RONA based on the Holy Man’s level.

At this point in my notes from the first time I watched the movie, I have the following puzzling scrawl:
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