Games - Via Prudensiae

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	Games - Via Prudensiae

Via Prudensiae (commonly abbreviated VP) is a Danish tabletop role-playing game, created by Ask Agger and Gimle Larsen. The game was published as a single book in 1994, by the Danish publishing company Modtryk. Only about a thousand copies were printed of the book, as the Danish market for games is relatively small.

System

Via Prudensiae is a game built on the idea, that role-playing should be realistic, but in the same time dramatic and cinematic. As a consequence, it is very detailed in depicting the player characters, but equally detailed in describing action sequences and violence.

The combat system progressive linear battle system, where characters can do an action when a certain time has elapsed, quite much like the computer role-playing game Final Fantasy.

Realism

The realism demands of the game manifest in a quite elaborate set of rules, especially in combat situations. The game takes a wide array of actions and events into consideration, such as damage location (which body part is hit by an attack), temporary shock and inability to act caused by fx. a hit or bad morale, various martial arts techniques, weapon reload and malfunction, bleeding wounds and possibly infections, various gun types from single shots to semi- and full-automatic and burst control, wounds cause skill and movement penalty, vehicle, boat and flight support, just to mention a few features.

And example of the realism is when a bullet (or other projectile) hits a character with an armor. First it's determined whether the bullet penetrates the armor, and if it doesn't, it's determined whether the bullet deals blunt damage instead, because of the kinetic energy of the projectile.

Due to the realism of the game, combat encounters are often avoided by the players, if possible, because a fight a very dangerous and easily becomes fatal. A successful hit or two by a gun or a blade is enough to kill a character, or in best case severely cripple the character due to serious wounds.

Luck

Due to the difficulty of surviving combat in the game, a statistic called Luck was invented to allow the characters to act more cinematic. Characters get Luck Points, which they can spend to get a positive modifier on a dice roll.

Combat length

The huge amount of complicated combat rules demands a lot of the gamemaster and takes a lot of time, especially in larger battles. An alternative turn-based battle system was invented, which could be utilitized in such situations, which was much quicker and easier to handle at the cost of realism.

Versatility

The game was designed to be as versatile as possible. Different epochs and themes are paid respect, fx. medieval-fantasy theme with swords and magic, present time with guns and tanks, future-high-tech theme with robots and cyborgs, etc.

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