What Do The Players Do?

I feel like I have trouble describing what is critical in my game for people to be able to do. The core of many games could be considered: 1) Fight; 2) Explore; and 3) Socialize. I think this came up most  with the D&D Next play test; however, I also saw it in reference to a Marvel Super Heroes hack where instead of "Solo/Buddy/Team," the split was along "Fight/Explore/Socialize" dynamic.

For my games, I'd probably alter the default list slightly and add a fourth category: 1) Fight; 2) Explore/Movement; 3) Investigate; and 4) Slice of Life. To break it down:

• Fight: Fighting is easy, doing harm and avoiding harm done to you. You can scale this up to size of the fight and range.
• Explore/Movement: Movement within spaces, as well as getting places in particular methods. Primarily for overcoming environmental obstacles, and the occasional chase scene.
• Investigate: Replaces social in my eyes, because generally people don't generally talk to just talk, or rather, they do, but dice don't hit the table then, they talk to find out stuff. Plus, the good ole "search the room for the clue" schtick.
• Slice of Life: My games seems to have a lot of the players just wanting to explore the world, set up merchant empires and other things that don't bring them into conflict with other people, but may generate plot lines that do so.

I think the problem with this set-up comes that Fight/Explore are what you do; Investigate is what you do; Social is how you do it, so if perhaps we added a fifth category of "Influence" that would make more sense for when I tell people what my games are generally about is the following, in order of game time used: Investigation, Influence/Fighting, Exploration, and Slice of Life. That seems a better representation of at least how my Changeling and Dresden Files games represent themselves.

Health Tracks, Revisited

It is easy to kill a player character, so that decision doesn't really interest me. However, a player saying, "This cause right here, this one is worth me dying for," is damn interesting to me as a GM. I enjoy the way that Fate, per Dresden Files, has a stress tracks to determine when a conflict ends, as well as allowing the player to choose to take long term wounds to stay in the fight as well; similarly, Fate bribes the characters to be willing to lose a conflict by gaining Fate Points by conceding before a roll is made.

I, previously, riffed on an idea by setting stakes overtly in what you were willing to risk. On my Facebook page it received a lot of flak because it broke how people thought it should work - because the principle is that minions should be less likely to risk death. They made a decent point, even with my preference of sacrificing reality for a really good narrative, i.e., modeling fiction, not physics.

So how to deal with health came up again in terms of how to model cinematic damage. And there were a few two ideas there that I wanted to capture:

• The more you get beaten up, the more you demonstrate your determination to fight, the better you fight. Tenra Bansho Zero, an Japanese Fantasy game, flat out has two stats: Vitality, which once lost, you are knocked out, and Wounds, which give you a bonus to fighting instead of losing vitality.
• There is no real death spiral in cinematic fighting, ala Savage Worlds, there's a shaken/stunned, maybe an injured, incapacitated/taken out, and dead. And the last is rare for the hero.

So how do I combine these? To do something vaguely White Wolf inspired (i.e., rating of 1-5) not unusual, I'd envision the track looking something like this (and remember, my young toddler probably has more artistic skills than I do):

The principle is the same, bad stuff happens to you, you mark off Body or Spirit tracks depending on the nature of the bad stuff. If you don't want to mark off the bad stuff, you mark off a point of Grit, get a die bonus - with more and more grit showing how bad you want to risk it.

Then the question is, how you do recovery Grit? The first way that comes to mind is through time, you slowly regain more and more Grit. In the short term, you might take long term penalties, i.e., wounds to regain the Grit.

I'm not entirely sure how to make it work, as I don't really have any other bits to hang off it, but it was an interesting enough concept I wanted to record it, so in six months when I get bored at work and want to play around, I can think about how to incorporate this into a more holistic system.

Game Design: Stunts and Spinning my Wheels

There are times I wish I had a partner with game design. I'm currently working on two different game designs now in my copious amounts of free time; however, I'm discovering that I'm hitting the same road block with both. Right now I'm spinning my wheels trying to come up with stunts/techniques/disciplines/etc. 

I think my failing is with the fact that I don't really have a clear vision for what I want the games to "do" - other than be fun and provide a reasonable amount of system robustness and dials to play the sort of games I enjoy playing.

But that's a far cry from "having a vision" that ties everything in together. I'm really thinking at this sort of proto-stage that I just need to brain storm and come up with several examples for each item I wish to focus on, stealing as necessary from other game designs that I've seen and then go "Want to do something that isn't here, let's talk," because, in the end, I'm just one brain and I'm good at adapting, not so much at the raw act of creation.

Perfect System: Genre Matters

Yesterday's post stemmed from a friend asking me after I got done discussing the short coming in my current Dresden Files game, "So what IS your favorite gaming system?" My knee jerk response was "For what setting?"

Genre matters a great deal for me and the system. Even something as simple as the base dice mechanic, for me, changes how I perceive and internalize a game.

For example, a game that allows for "exploding" dice (such as Classic Deadlands, L5R/7th Sea, or World of Darkness) mean that every roll has a potential for extreme results. Other games, like the Cortex+ system, the results will be within a certain spectrum of results - one gets better results by adding more dice to the equation. And in D&D there's a 5% chance of rolling a 20 (the meaningfulness of which varies from rules set to rules set and table to table depending on in/formal house rules).

Similarly, a system should incorporate what it considers important into the rules. Unknown Armies has an entirely different feel to how it approaches madness than does Call of Cthulhu. Or for investigations, Gumshoe's system of spending currency to make declarations versus Wick's Houses of the Blooded where successes on a roll allow you to declare another fact to be true, even if you lost the conflict.

What does it boil down to - rules matter for creating the reality that the players create a narrative within. If the genre calls for over the top action, roof top chases, and "devil may care" antics, but the system penalizes any sort of risky maneuver with penalties, then there is a disconnect; or on the other side, if you are seeking to play grim, dark horror that leaves the players/characters feeling alone and in the dark; however, the dice allow for amazing swings of luck, or some other mechanic that allow them to pervert the threads of doom (chips from Deadlands) then you remove some of the horror because you provide a way out.

So why am I pondering all this? For the usual reasons - my life is slowing down enough so I'm playing with developing a game system. But I'll be honest - I'm more of a heavy adapter than a creator of new stuff. Take some stuff from this game, take some stuff from that game, take some of my own "What do I want" from my own attempts and piece it all together.

Right now there are two genre occupying my mental design space. The first is a more classical fantasy game that is designed around how I tend to run games - heavy on the every day, social activities, a fair bit of investigation, with violence not too common. Mostly, I want this game to be about using what drives a person for and against them. I want determining their motivations to be an important part, and figuring out how to use it against them to be even more critical in the success of plans. However, I want it to laid over a fairly traditional looking system of attributes and abilities. This game I'd want to support my more traditional longer running arcs and stories and allow for more growth and change in the characters. My current version is using Cortex+ as its inspiration. The core questions I'd want to ask here is "What drives you to succeed?"

The second one is far less developed, but it is all due to an actual play podcast of a Mass Effect game. The game itself uses the World of Darkness as a backbone, but I look at the idea of running short 2-3 session arcs that have clear mission format and want to play around with that concept. I'm still not sure what questions I want to ask here for the system, perhaps it is the home for my nascent idea of "What are you willing to risk to succeed?" I'd want something quick to generate pools of dice to roll to maintain the kinetic nature of the game, as well as something that allows for more differences in tools (i.e., weapons, armor, and other tools have more of an effect on the game play than I normally care about).

What is the "perfect" game system?

I've been trying to answer the question "what is my perfect game system" for years. And I keep failing to find one or develop one for myself. But I was asked again recently and figured I'd actually write it out. All thoughts, statements, what-have-you, discussed here can be assumed to be prefaced with a "for me" as there's no perfect for all people system.

This got long.

What Makes Tactical Combat, Well, Tactical?

What makes a system's combat system tactical (or really any part of the system)? In short, choices and options make a system tactical, where you have to make decisions on what you do.

Well that was simple. Shortest blog post every by me. I'm done.

... ... ... ...

No, that's not really the end of my thoughts.

In my experience, the five W's (Who, What, When, Where, and Why) can provide the factors that make combat interesting - the more of those questions you get to ask in a combat, the more interesting the combat will be for me.

To discuss in more depth, and totally out of order:

Where - Where is probably the most basic of the tactical choices. Where do you stand, do you get cover, do you move to melee, do you stand beside the fighter. This is something that the gridded (i.e., played on a map with a grip) and war games (such as Warhammer) do extremely well. You can even keep it vague, such as zones from Fate, the positioning system from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition (which if I remember correctly, as a close, distant, really far rating system) and each has its pluses and minuses, balancing speed of combat and number of options given.

Personally, I think the best balance becomes one of "zones" where you can divide the space up into logical chunks.

What (and How) - What you do is the other key choice. If there is only one "right" action to take, no matter what the circumstances are, then that's tactically boring. A lot of systems, such as new World of Darkness system, use this because the play is not supposed to be about the tactical system, I read someone describing the system as a "murder system" because it isn't tactical play per se, but about murdering someone. This is something that 4th Edition D&D did extremely well - giving lots of options to all of the classes for what they could do with each action - be it an at will, an encounter, or a daily power. Personally, for me, it made the fighter systemically interesting to play, because I had options beyond "roll basic attack to act". Fate, my current game that I'm running, only gives a few basic options of Attack, Defend, Maneuver, and Move; but maneuver covers a wide range of activities so I'm not hugely concerned with it (which reminds me, I need to do more with maneuvers in my next Dresden Game).

The How is just a variable to the what you do - all out attack or cautious attack. Not much else to say on that factor.

When - When as a tactical choice was introduced to me, in depth, with Exalted 2nd Edition and the Battle Wheel. Many of the key choices in that game were not positioning on a map (because distances and locations were generally easy to change), but the position on the battle wheel/initiative chart. I've talked about initiative a little bit ago, so I won't go too far into the weeds with this one.

Who - Who is an interesting one. It can be "who attacks" such as with war gaming, and deciding who needs to do what, when (oh wait that ties into the others). It can also be Who is attacked - do you kill the mage first, or the fighter, wipe out the mooks, or just go after the boss? This requires there to be options on who you attack - which is why I enjoy minion rules, because I don't want every major fight to be a single major BBEG against the party, instead I want there to be multiple opponents and options on the table to provide choices for the players to decide on.

Why - Why is a hard one for me to look at within the tactical combat. Some systems, such as Smallville, try to force the issue by removing standard attributes, but replacing with motivating figures. Anyone out there have thoughts on a good "why" tactical system?

Stake Setting and Deadliness

Random idea - as inspired by Honor+Intrigue and a thread on RPG.Net regarding the deadliness of systems, also probably some Dogs in the Vineyard as well, from what I recall.

Basically, everything comes down to the fact that, for me as a GM, killing a player's character isn't particularly interesting. If I want to kill a PC, it is going to happen. Unless they do their best not to engage with the world and plot, and then there's still always the "random mail bomb" if the game is modern, or "rocks fall, everybody dies". So what's the point?

Now, if I can get the players to the point of choosing to risk death, of making an active, positive affirmation that "this is worth dying for", then THAT I find most interesting.

What if the stake setting was based on how much the players were willing to risk and make it a decision that could be made. Basically, the design would consider of three tracks for the level of risk you were willing to accept - loss of your goal (Defeat), loss of your health (Injury), loss of your life (Death) - I quickly sketched out a diagram (Note: I'm NOT a graphic designer, or all that visual a person when it comes to graphics, so my apologies).

Basically, the plan would be for the players to choose how much they are willing to risk if they end up starting to lose. At first, all they are risking is the loss of their goals (usually stop the bad guy at this point); however, if they want to push, they are risking injury, and finally, if it is important enough to them, they are risking death to succeed.

Possible problems I see with this - first, by leaving it in the players' hands, they may never get to kill/defeat the bad guy unless the players start losing. Of course, I could just have the same track for serious opponents who have the will to stick in the fight (which would make for a great demarcation for how tough the opposition is - lightweight minions are only willing to risk defeat, lieutenants are generally only willing to risk up to injury for their goals, and the true evil overlords are willing to risk their life to achieve something great.

A second problem is that this is a very narrative defeat - it requires the players and GM to come up with an answer as to how the defeat (of either side) emerges.

The third major problem that I see relates to the first - if the players are already losing, why should they bother to raise the stakes? Things are already going against them, so there needs to be some sort of mechanic that allows them some sort of bonus to success.

Benefits - I think the key is that it allows for results other than total defeat, loss, and destruction of a side in a conflict. Many games make it hard to retreat, so players learn to not bother, and GMs come up with more and more odd ways for leaders to escape death.  Everyone may still need to come up with some explanation - but at least if everyone accepts the rules, they know this is going to be the end result. (See Problem #2)

I Love Mechanics Mondays: Advantages and Disadvantages

Ryan Macklin got to writing about advantages and disadvantages a little while ago, and basically said everything that I would have said for what I wanted. To reiterate his key points, disadvantages:

1. They should always fucking matter. No such thing as a free lunch.
2. If you tie it to character currency[i.e., build points], whether getting some more or paying some, you’re encouraging uninteresting — no, I’ll go as far as to say bullshit — behavior.
3. The player should not be powerless to incorporate them, especially if they are tied to a reward cycle.
4. And frankly, let’s tie them to reward cycles, whether it’s growth currency (XP) or competence currency (things like Fate points).

The principle reason being is that disadvantages put the work on the GM, generally, to take advantage of them, so they should be few in number. Advantages? Well, the player will WANT to remember to implement those at every opportunity.

Advantages got less attention - I think my favorite implementation, at least conceptually has been Adventure!'s implementation, which effectively added a sixth dot. This supercharged the advantage - You didn't have Resources: 6, you had "Wealth Beyond Avarice"; you didn't have "Contacts: 6" you had "Kingpin" and so on and so forth. The idea of titles and names for these backgrounds traits just caught my imagine, and even years later I have a certain fondness for the concept of playing a Daredevil who's power is buried in the wealth of backgrounds.

I think my ideal would be a four tiered system - something that gave you a minor/moderate/major advantage in a conflict or challenge, with the fourth tier being "overwhelming", and basically if you weren't equally matched in advantages you were going to lose. For something like resources it would be something like $100/$1000/10,000/500,000 of extra spending money or something equally ridiculous. Overwhelming should break the step increases.

Modeling Conflict: The Role of Will

A little bit ago (as this was supposed to go up last week), Rob Donoghue posted bit on Why Anime Conflict is Hard. And while I responded there, it did get at something I've been looking for in games since I was introduced to the idea that something beyond mere skills and natural abilities might affect a conflict.

The earliest incident that I was introduced to was probably White Wolf's willpower. Where your drive to succeed, you will, could actually make you better at a skill. Heroquest for all that it is a horrible system for what I actually want out of a game, is wonderful in the conceptualization - where Death Ray at 16 is just as useful as Love for my Family at 16. Where what you might feel for a person, place, or thing might be as useful as what you know what to do, or what natural ability you were born with. Unknown Armies had the three passions - Fear, Anger, and Noble. So on and so forth.

But to bring this back to the post - how do you quantify Will? How do quantify someone wanting something more (and it still, maybe not being enough).

White Wolf probably has it best - Willpower gives you more dice to throw, which generally changes the odds. A trick might be to adjudicate how many willpower points you are willing to spend. Normally you can only spend 1 willpower; however, if something you care about (like your life) is threatened you can spend 2 willpower; and ultimately, if it is something that you are willing to die to protect, you can spend 4 willpower. 

Fate allows something similar, where you can always spend a fate point for a +1; but if you have an aspect related, you can get a +2 or a reroll.

The other alternative is "What are you willing to risk?" If a mechanic could somehow push the results up a notch, but let you keep trying to succeed. However, that gets back into conflict resolution on a scene level; where the conflict is resolved and you get to determine how you succeeded. And unfortunately, that's why a lot of books/anime/movies are best resolved at the scene resolution level rather than on a task by task basis, because it is so very hard to come up with a system that can do this sort of thing on a task level.

So what's my ideal? A system that factors in the why as much as the what. That normally, everyday things are just some roll of the dice. However, when things really, truly matter, then you can accomplish amazing feats. However, especially in the nature of fighting anime, I still want someone who is merely rolling base dice, if they are good enough, to be able counteract all that will; it should not be will alone.

White Wolf's Willpower allows for some of that; unfortunately, the pool refreshes too slowly/is to limited for much of what I want. Something to ponder as I continue working on things in my brain. Because yes, of course, I am trying to build the perfect system for me.