Stamina/Exhaustion, can it be done well?
Stamina/Exhaustion, can it be done well?
Hey all,
I'm not familiar with any RPGs that implement stamina/exhaustion systems. Perhaps one of you lot can educate me! Regardless, I'm trying to include one in my current project. So let's discuss stamina and exhaustion systems!
Selfish bits:
For more info on what I'm thinking about doing.
Essentially using an action builds up your exhaustion. The player gets to determine the amount of effort they put into an action, this affects the exhaustion, so more effort = more potential damage = more exhaustion.
Every action has a max exhaustion based on the character's strengths. A hardened fighter can swing swords longer than a wizard, but the wizard can cast more magic. When the character's exhaustion exceeds the max exhaustion of an action they cannot perform that action.
So far I think exhaustion should refresh by 1 every turn. So waiting out a few rounds behind cover can really give you an edge. Initiative and turns haven't been determined.
Thanks for you time :)
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IMO, the main problem with introducing a stamina bar is that it slows games down measurably. Not only is it another resource that players have to keep in mind - which can lead to analysis paralysis sometimes - it can also lead to players just hunkering down behind cover and waiting for stamina to regen: which is usually not something very fun to do.
If you do end up going with a stamina system, I strongly urge you to use tokens to keep track of your PC's stamina. Having physical counters really help you monitor the situation as both player and GM, and it's nice to be able to have something tactile to fondle between turns.
I definitely agree with you. Stamina adds a ton of bookkeeping. However in my particular case it has the potential to add a great deal of strategy and fun.
So my main hurdle is precisely what your addressing, how to not bog down the speed of gameplay.
Tactile is a great idea, I've thought that using a d20 would be useful, simply make the face value equal to your stamina, similar to keeping track of life in MtG.
I'm in the same boat as you with my system but may be a bit father ahead so I will write out the couple of ways I have been looking at it. The only imprtant mechanical pre-text from my system is that defending is always an action and is rolled along side attacks. also, I use advantages and disadvantages in combat represented by extra dice. example: normal actions are 3d6, a disadvantage would mean rolling an extra d6 and removing the highest roll. advantage would be removing the lowest roll instead
stamina as dice: the first way i worked at it i decided that stamina could work much like a dice pool to be drawn from the regenerated a set amount per turn. players would roll dice directly from their pool but had limits to how many they could spend on different actions. this ran into trouble because I felt there was too much micro-management when players had between 6 and 9 or so stamina with 3 to 4 regen.
stamina breaking point: this was the closest to what you may be looking at. players had breaking points for their stamina depending on how much damage they were taking and how much they were being hit, passing certain points would lower their ability to fight and could make them vulnerable and weak. this lead to combat drying out though as everyone slowly became weaklings.
stamina as actions: this is the current build. players have a set amount of stamina per turn and spend the stamina to perform actions like moving, attacking, blocking, etc. when players run out of stamina they get disadvantages but can still act defensively. strong blows and wounds can affect the amount of stamina a player gets per turn.
I'm using very similar mechanical pretexts! The only difference is its not 3d6, but dice pool based. Essentially you get a max pool based off your stats, acting requires you to choose a number of dice and you gain exhaustion equal to that number.
So I think I'm somewhere in between your two last examples, there's no breaking point for my idea, you simply cannot do it of your exhaustion exceeds the skill level. Forcing players to take breathers even mid battle.
I think it will also provide neat tactics for things like withholding attacks to defend better (be cause defending builds exhaustion too), or trying to overwhelm an enemy with multiple coordinated attacks.
Thanks for your input!
Tell me, what does stamina achieve in your system? Why is it important? Why do you want to include it?
There are 2 ways to go about introducing mechanics. 1 - is coming up with mechanics that "fit" the goal of your game (top-down approach). 2 - is coming up with mechanics and then thinking what game would they fit (bottom-up approach).
For example, a stamina mechanic could be good for games that are focused around resource management (stamina as resource). Torchbearer uses something similar to a stamina system (it's based around supplies. You get dehydrated, then hungry, then stressed out etc. resource/planning management). Classroom Deathmatch, which is based around Battle Royale movie, has a dice-pool "stamina" system. Basically you have some dice that you can boost your rolls with and you have to survive 5 days, but the dice are practically impossible to replenish (resource/risk management).
There could be ways to use a stamina system purely for combat but.. meh. Look at D&D - Barbarians can rage once per day. So after combat, they just rest and replenish their rage before the next combat. Unless there's a clock, the mechanic is kinda pointless. Once/encounter abilities are not that fun at all, because usually the encounter ends before you use them up. And spell slots mechanic, which is kinda resource management-ish, for me is frustrating. It feels more like an abstract balancing tool than a tool that makes me feel like a wizard. So don't do these things and come up with something new, please :D
I'm definitely coming from a top down approach. As far as what stamina achieves in my system, I believe it will add an element of tactics in interactions (not just physical combat).
By having exhaustion build up as they act, it forces the players to consider their approach. "Should I go all in or reserve some energy in case I fumble?" - a possible example. Other tactics could include tiring the enemy out with coordinated attacks or resting behind cover to before retaliating to make the most of your charge.
I want to include something along these lines because my system has felt a bit flat. Perhaps that's a fault of the system in general and it may be an unsavable mess. However I will still to make it work, and this exhaustion idea looks promising so far. Without exhaustion the system becomes almost automatic, I attack with my best attack because it's my best, repeat. Exhaustion adds an element of risk, knowing that you need to save some energy to prepare for the counter attack adds huge negatives to going all out, also it makes for a fun balancing game when you include the randomness of the dice.
I like the analogy to resource management I just want to make sure things don't get too tedious. Like keeping track of a constantly fluctuating stamina score might not be ideal.
Spell slots and once per X mechanics annoyed me thoroughly as someone who enjoyed playing magic users. Part of the reason I'm trying to create something new and awesome! :)
Hrmmm so, this is a really off-the-cuff embryo of an idea... but what if instead of raising an exhaustion meter, thus cutting off certain options you instead go with something like exerting effort temporarily subtracts from character stats. This doesn't keep the player from acting as they choose, but heavy attacks might result in diminished defensive capabilities, or even diminish their "strength".
As with anything, it would have to be done right, but it's an idea I would want to explore.
Yeah it's still a baby idea, not been play tested yet either.
I'm interested in your suggestion, I was hoping for a dice pool system. Is that what you're imagining too? How do you see this temporary loss regenerating?
The Dark Eye uses a stamina system that is so obsolete most groups I played with decided to not use it.
Essentially it is a pool of points and using weapons uses up these points. You need more points if you are in heavy armor, use a heavy weapon etc. If you don't have the points you can't do an action. You can use a "take breath" action to regain some of your stamina points.
Overall it's far too much book keeping and too less fun to use.
What was it about the book keeping that made it unreasonable? What would you change to help that?
Open Adventure uses stamina points as a currency to play combat abilities. For example to get extra damage out of a weapon, or negate some suffering from an incoming attack you can pay the stamina price for the particular item's ability that turn. Some spells my also have a stamina cost to use their more advanced features.
You usually start with a number of stamina points equal to your HP. Resting for one hour replenishes one SP.
For me I'm excited by the games I see coming out with tech that supports co-creation and/or collaborative story-telling. It seems like it's become almost a default stance.
On the other hand digital play (even after the last year) suffers from continued neglect. I've seen a few games that leverage simple apps or which engage with Discord or other platforms Lancer's character/mech creation app is excellent and Fae's Anatomy's has a neat online integration, but I haven't seen nearly as many as I would hope or expect.
So I am making my own RPG and I am basicly done with the line-up of my classes, but I noticed that although there are some types of characters that are rather unique, there are still many familiar faces. What archetypes you find lacking in modern ttrpgs?
The recent post on non-combat classes got me thinking. The critique of making sure that all your players' characters are "skilled" in what is going on at the table was legit, especially if a large section of your game revolves around that action.
This got me thinking about if DnD's 3 Pillars philosophy is fundamentally wrong. We don't need to rehash the issues with implementation here....we all know that Combat reigns supreme over Social & Exploration. Most of us know how this can suck as a PC, because combat takes up so much table time and time between turns can be brutal....and that's when your character has well-designed abilities you can plan to use in the coming minutes.
However, my assumption was that the game just didn't have enough rules and support for these other two pillars (along with too many rules for combat). Going off that, I figured the three pillars might just need rebalancing. Make it so that the ranger doesn't just skip all of exploration. Give all the CHA & WIS classes more explicit social skills. That sort of thing. However if we are basing our new design philosophy off the opinion that "all characters must have abilities or skills directly related to main gameplay sections" in 5E, we would end up with bloated classes that are 3X as large (roughly). I also wonder if they would be able to even build out that design space without everything feeling samey (i.e. why MTG's has rules for their color pie).
This leads me to my ultimate question. Is it better to simplify the scope of your game or its mechanics? Does it matter if you maintain the same bottom-line cognitive load? Simplifying scope here means stripping out systems and rules that don't support a single mission/theme. Sticking with our allegory, this would mean turning DnD 5e into a pure-combat game with completely freeform RP and focusing design on making that combat experience deep. This doesn't mean the game has to be 100% combat all the time, but all skills should be built with combat in mind. Reading minds is great for social games, and you don't have to get rid of it, but for a combat-centric game, you would want to provide a bonus like getting additional enemy stats if you read their mind or perhaps once/battle you can automatically hit without rolling.
The flip side here is simplifying mechanics across multiple subsystems. In this world 5e would still have 3 pillars, but they would actually be balanced. Characters would operate like the colors in magic....each would have a distinct specialty. You would select a certain class precisely because they could do things others in the party couldn't. You might have a Leader with lots of allies but only knows how to fight with basic daggers, whereas you know the Barb can smash some monsters but they have no social circle to speak of. Ideally a party in this system wouldn't be impatiently waiting for their turn to "do their thing" but relying on one another as specialists. I think the critical element here is making sure that no segment of the game takes too long so that certain PCs/classes don't have more opportunities to shine more than others.
TLDR: Is cognitive load of all rules better distributed towards a single gameplay loop in TTRGS?
First off I apologize for any grammar and or spelling errors. English is only my third language.
I am a huge fan of traveller which I still play as regular as I can get away with, both as player and GM. But looking through this sub and generally TTRPG subs I see a huge wave of people wanting faster / snappier more immediate and action packed.
Seeing that makes me feel like a Dinosaur despite the fact that I am just about to turn 40 years old next week.
The reason I ask is that I have been dreaming and partially hacking away at a very crunchy system that is heavily inspired by traveler and similar systems that are considered more on the crunchy side, and while I have no immediate commercial intent with it and no expectations of making any money with it I still would love to design a system that actually has a decent playerbase.
The act of creating is of course nice but if what is created might not see much if any use is a bit disheartening. Is this just my perception or are crunchy systems not "in trend" anymore?
To give a concrete example. Traveler has this very elaborate system of ship ownership and shares and even a system for property ownership that over the years I made extensive use of. To my knowledge DnD has a somewhat similar thing with building structures but overall that more "Simulationist" approach gets rarer and rarer.
I understand that systems like that are slower and more taxing to play but I did not expect that the market for those kinds of system seems so small.
Edit: Just wanted to say thank you for all the conversation that is going on, this gave me a variety of perspectives that I sorely needed, it is much appreciated.
Every few weeks or so I see new designers posting something about how they want to make "fast-paced" or "cinematic" or ""rules-lite" combat, all of these phrases are normally vague code for how to "making combat quicker."
There are lots of approaches to this, and I think a broad thread of lots of approaches would be helpful for the designers that flock to this sub searching for advice on the topic. Feel free to post examples from other games, how you could go about it, general advice and know-how, and even comments on why you prefer faster or slower combat in ttrpgs. The idea is to have alot of unique approaches in the comments, all of which might work best for a different game, for designers to browse through and examine, and to help them think of what approach could be best for their game.
Side note: I think alot of designers who mostly play dnd 5e and are first-time designers ask this, precisely because dnd combat is not fast (this isn't a bad thing, slow combat can be good), just an observation.
One of the questions we get here fairly often is "what should I use for layout for my game?"
One of the most popular answers is Affinity Publisher. It is a one-time purchase, unlike Adobe InDesign, and has a lot of great features. They are currently have a sale that you can look at here.
We don't endorse it (or any other software) but I purchased it during the last sale and put it through a few paces, and liked the result.
Hello there,
I'd like to hear about your favourite classes in any rpg system that are not (completely) combat centric. Since combat is a key part of most rpgs some may have combat skills, but that's okay.
Please tell me, what system the class is from and why you like it / or think it is unique.
Thanks in advance!
UPDATE: Just to clarify: I'd like to hear about CLASSES, CHARACTER CONCPETS, PLAYBOOKS and so on. A class that is not combat centric can still have some sort of combat abilities. I am thinking of
the Azurite from Spire, that during character creation can either choose a weapon or a bodyguard. He is essentially a trader, but has some combat skills that still are trader-themed.
the Rat Catcher from Warhammer Fantasy, which I only read about on the Wiki. I guess the Name says it all.
the "Wegmann" (directly translated Wayman) from my own game, which simply knows his way around the "alte Land" (old Lands), but can defend himself and his companions, because of all the dangers he already faced on his Weg.
These classes are all not Soldiers, Knights or something like that - but they still can fight. Their main idea still is utility.
This is not about right or wrong. It's about what you think is a cool not-combat-focussed class.
It's been a while I'm running round with tons of unrealized ideas, cool dice system or mechanics for a trpg cyberpunk game, but I never managed to make it all click together. It always felt like a mish mash of lore and mechanics cobbled up without too much sense.
So I took a step back and I set out to figure out what is the pillar on which all mechanic and lore gravitate. Here I'm not talking about which set of dice should be used, or what are the main factions of the game, or even if it should be a narrative-heavy or not game.
Even before that, I want to figure out what does it means to play a cyberpunk game?
What are the thematics of cyberpunk, what feelings it evoke, what are one's expectation when hearing cyberpunk? What do you expect to do in a cyberpunk game?
I can then make sure that every mechanics and lore stay in the thematics uncovered by those question. So that a player will feels like they are playing a cyberpunk game, and not a d&d game with a cyberpunk setting.
I wanted to share with you the result of this process, maybe some will find this interesting, or if you have yourself your own answer, I would be glad to hear them!
What does it means to play a cyberpunk game?
I started to list everything I had in mind when thinking about cyberpunk. Be it words, sentence, concept, anything that went through my mind. After a while here are the main ones I managed to sort out.
Having the ambition to do something*, a thirst for power, freedom, revenge, justice, etc..*
Taking risks*, daring to take actions that other would not, fighting for or against a system, rock'n'roll. But it also means sacrificing things that matter to succeed.*
Body modification*. Their is way to change a body, prostethic enhancement, genetic modification, chirugical changes*
Humanity is redefined*, is a machine or a virtual AI can be considered human? Is a human caught in the lowest part of system and treated no more as a cog is still a human? When you can do everything in a virtual world, do a human still need to exist in the phsyical one? Can you lose your humanity?*
Human mind can be digitalized, stored, modified.
Reputation is everything*. Your word is everything, in the street, in the corporate world, everything you say, do has a consequence on someone.*
Technology is omnipresent*, but vary greatly between the class of people.*
Excess in everything*, all is scaled up. The wealthy are obscenly wealthy, the poor are immensly poor, sex and drugs are everywhere, their is no limit to violence, but also art representation can cover whole districts, festivity can take huge proportion.*
Mega corporation are defining the world*. There is in place a system ruled by elite and people with money, it also means that there are distinct entity/faction.*
Now with those starting point, I can work on what type of mechanic can empasize any of those points. For example, if I take the point Reputation is everything, a fitting mechanic would be to have a mechanic that the player can gamble some of their character's reputation to help in an action, but with the risk of losing it.
Another example, would be about Technology is omnipresent, if that's the case I probably need to have a mechanics that involce interacting with Technology.
And that's the point I'm at right now, trying to figure out what type of mechanic should be added to enforce one of those point. Thank you for reading all of that, I hope it helped, or at least was a bit entertaining, if you have any idea, remarks, or even your own answer to the question, feel free to share, I'll be happy to discuss!
I've been working on my system for about 6 months now. This all started out of a frustration for DnD and a belief that I could do it better. Since then I've been lurking here pretty hard and have learned a lot. (Thank you all. It's been invaluable.) I've also found a lot of great TTRPGs to look into for inspiration/comparison.
The issue is that reading rules, and playing rules are not the same, and I've really only played DnD and CoC. So I've blackmailed a bunch of my friends into playing a bunch of systems with me. (Don't worry, I'm sure that as soon as they realize 5e isn't the only system worth playing, I won't need to continue threatening them.) I'm planning on 2-3 months per system over the next 18 months.
This is where you guys come in.
I want about 8-10 other systems to try out that have interesting, unique or just downright fun implementations of the following:
Generic class/classless systems
Non turn-based combat
Cinematic combat resolution
Anything gritty sci-fi, to see how these games are generally designed, so people who play them aren't disappointed in mine
Non combat/social pillars (particularly espionage, politics or smuggling)
Not sure how to word this one, but let's call them "bottle" systems (where the entire game takes place in a very rigid area, e.g. prison wing, psych ward, spaceship, etc.)
In depth social mechanics
Psychosis mechanics
Looting/inventing/repairing mechanics
Chase mechanics
I'm even willing to playtest a system of yours, presuming it's ready for that, and has a strong emphasis on at least one of the things I listed.
Hi everyone! Just a fun little poster design based on a ‘Quest’ one I designed a while back, but this time for Dungeon Encounters or Dungeon Actions. Just answer the questions to see what your next dungeon encounter type should be! The green boxes are additional things to add to a certain encounter to make them a little more exciting. If you’re a DM, it might be fun to let your players answer these questions and send you their answers, so you can tailor your next dungeon delve to their preferences (or enrage them by playing out entirely opposite encounters haha!).
The design was recently posted on my KS update as a quirky freebie, so thought I’d share it here!
Coin Flip: The poster isn’t necessarily meant for planning sessions, more so for a bit of fun, but you could always flip a coin to answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and randomly generate your next encounter type!
I’ll add a link to a slightly higher resolution file. Thanks!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tTsupgpq9o7dZQx8z-zykjDPwj2bbWml/view?usp=sharing
I really like hit locations, and I want to use it in my current project, but I'm only familiar with how ORE does it which doesn't fit with my dice system.
I can just add another die roll, but I want to see how other games pull it off to see if there are better options. Any references and personal experience on the matter will be helpful =)
EDIT: A clarification, my goal in this is to raise tensions ("shit I'm about to lose my arm!"), Add tactical options ("we need him alive, go for the legs") and add long term consequences for combat (it's part of the games main theme). Attacks are done using opposed rolls, where the defender doesn't always roll (auto success for attacker).
On a different note:
too many here try to talk me out of doing it. Fellas, I appreciate your help and concern, but I'm asking for recommendations on games using hit locations and original ideas that you're willing to share, not a review on my own ideas. Please refrain from comments about why it's a bad idea.
I played with hit locations before, and I know it has its downsides - that's why I'm asking for help and I have my own opinions. Telling me "don't do it" is just a waste of your time
I am getting to a point where I have enough mechanics and lore written down to start prototyping the rulebook draft (DnD type game in a classic fantasy setting but a little more dark grim).
So I decided to share the layout I recently did (3 pages for the dwarf character creation); the purpose is to come up with a theme and atmosphere to be used throughout the book. It's still a fairly rough draft at this point. There is a little bit of lore and mechanics here but you wouldn't be able to just the core system from this.
I would be curious to see if you guys have any feedback.
I'm working on a game that is 'fast but detailed' kinda trying to find the best middle ground between detailed but not wasting the players time. It is a universal system although by default it will have a fantasy setting and some horror / post apocalypse modules.
So here is my question...
FEET OR METERS!?
Like many role playing games it can be tactical or minds eye therefore distances can be relevant and it can benefit from a grid.
For european DND players: is everything being in feet an issue?
For American players: would 1 meter squares bother you?
I grew up with both and have no problem going back and forth but wondering what peoples preference is in terms of easy to visualize.
Oh, a new version of my D&D 4e/Dungeon World mashup is out:
https://lacara-games.itch.io/twilight-kingdoms
You can see the vast difference between version 0.6, which is the first version the wider internet got to see, and version 0.7 which I just finished yesterday. I took a lot of the feedback to heart, and I cleaned up and simplified a lot of overly complex mechanics. You can tell it hacked away a lot of cruft because I actually added content to the game, but the new version is 50 pages shorter.
I've been waffling over the core resolution mechanic for my d100 roll-under system, and I'd like to get a pulse check on the latest iteration.
Mechanic goals:
Support trinary outcome (success, mixed bag, fail)
Eliminate the need for roll modifiers if possible - no adding or subtracting the raw number outputs
Have roll probabilities be as transparent as possible
How action resolution works:
Characters have Attributes with a score from 0 to 100
GM gives each task a difficulty rating from 10 for easy stuff, up to 100 for the nigh impossible
GM can call for a Character to roll using a specific Attribute, and sets the difficulty rating
Player rolls 1d100
IF the roll is greater than Attribute score, the action fails
IF the roll is less than BOTH Attribute score AND difficulty rating, the action succeeds but at a cost.
IF the roll is in the "Sweet Spot", less than the Attribute score but greater than the difficulty rating, the action is a total success
Some notes:
It's entirely possible for a Character to be out of their depth with no hope of a total success. If an Intellect 30 thug tries to decipher scientific notes with DR 50, there is no Sweet Spot. The best they can do is a partial success.
This method supports trinary outcomes, but it doesn't have to. If there's no interesting "partial" outcome, then the DR can just be 0, and the resolution becomes binary again.
So... vibe check. What does rpgdesign think? Have you ever encountered a mechanic similar to this?
I was very tempted to write "Vibe Check" instead, not going to lie. So I had an idea, and I just wanted to see if it was my sick, covid-addled mind fucking with me or if it was something that actually had some appeal to more than just me and the weirdos I like to call my friends.
Said idea was that a group of players would play as both a species and offshoots there of. I.E. They would come together at the start of a campain to create a species together. Choosing from Mammalian, Reptilian, Monotreme, Avian, or Arthropod(I mean bug, but I can't be fucked looking up the actual word.). Fuck fish and crustaceans because they would basically be playing entirely different from everything else. Could do them as a splatbook later I guess. Anywhoo, after that they would allot stats and pick the genetic traits for their species which would then provide the basis for them to make the actual character they would play.
Game play would be broken up between strategic and tactic. Strategic play would see players more or less controlling communities of their specific subspecies, and each generation they can allot mutation points to form their preferred creature over time. Gameplay here is more about controling territory and resources ala risk. There's plenty of hex-map generators online that people can use so I don't see it as particularly difficult to make simple rules for resource allocation.
Tactical play would be basically the GM's plot, random events that require special attention, or major events such as territorial disputes over new lands, unseasonable famine, fucking aliens, whatever the fuck your GM decides to throw at you to shake things up. At which point you'd control a specific specimen of your species with levels and such that allow you to basically gain skills. Completing one of these events would net you an extra mutation point.
Setting wise, I'd thought to put it on something like an artificial habitat so that the GM was quite literally an overseeing AI that *could* introduce weird shit like merging or decoupling enclosures, introducing an alien species, or other weird science fantasy bullshit that sounds fun.
All in All, I thought this sounds fun. Just thinking of the idea basically gave me all the mechanics I'd need to actually write down to make it work, so I'd see if anyone actually cared enough to warrant spending the time and effort to do so. At least one of my friends is into it, so I might do it anyway, but why not share the love? So, feedback would be nice. If you have any questions about how I'd even go about doing this shit, I have basically everything figured out save the minor events for strategic play. Go ahead and ask away.
I had to order two proofs because I clicked the wrong export version. Money is not much loss, but the time required was waaaay too long. In this case, I wasn't exporting as CMYK, so the colors were very muted and near gray.
Product is here if you are interested https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/357751/Stories-from-the-Slough
So this idea actually came in a roundabout way from Pathfinder's Bulk weight system. I thought it was neat how Light items could be bundled up into Bulk weight without necessarily getting into the ounce-by-ounce, pound-by-pound bean counting that would normally entail. I had the idea of applying the Bulk concept to ammunition for weapons with nebulous ammo like flamethrowers, belt fed machine guns, energy coils, etc, so that each attack consumes one Light weight worth of ammo out of 10 in a bulk. I then figured out that as players leveled up their skill in, say, machine guns, they could leverage this ambiguity to squeeze out more damage per burst without needing to justify where all these extra bullets were coming from.
But anyway. Something about the way this Bulk system allowed me to handwave smaller units and accordion them into larger units clicked in my head and I wondered if I could use this logic to solve another problem my game was experiencing: distance.
For context, the setting for my rpg is a fantasy WW1. There are rifles that can shoot thousands of feet, and vehicles and mounts that can zoom well over 100 mph, while also featuring gritty, trench-to-trench melee combat. For our puny monkey brains, the difference between 30 and 60 feet is easy to comprehend, but the difference between a rifle that shoots up to 1,500 feet and one that shoots 2,700 feet is incomprehensible. The same goes for vehicle speed- both overland and overhead. I needed a system that can seamlessly 'zoom out' when a player is flying a biplane and 'zoom in' when their allies are raiding a trench on the ground, and 'zoom in-out-in-out' when players use an anti-aircraft gun on an enemy dragon-rider while their own plane fires down on the badguys in the next trench over.
So because of the setting, both imperial and metric make sense in context, so I decided to use feet for small scale distances, and kilometers for far distances. A pistol has a range of 30 feet, a horse can travel 1 kilometer per round. Because nobody knows the difference between a foot and a kilometer and there's no way any player would be a wiener over the range of this one rifle or the speed of a horse or the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. Post over.
What's that? You know the difference? And that one guy at every table does? Well dang. In that case, I came up with sufficiently imperial and metric-sounding terms for units of measurement that aren't irl units. Stones and Decomeasures. Those terms sound wonky? Well, it makes more sense to come up with terms that fit your setting anyway.
Playing a space-Western? Paces and Parsecs.
Playing a gladiatorial drama? Cubits and Mille Passus.
Playing as rats in a fast food joint? Pickles and Walk-In Freezers.
Playing a [game] in a [setting]? [Feet] and [Kilometers].
Whatever helps you make sense of Small Fars and Big Fars.
Anyway hope that made remotely any sense. Cheers.
Back in 2019, my friend and I wrote the Land of Pan-gu as a test run for a series of adventures we had in mind. It did okay, and while we didn't make a lot of money (haha), it was a project that jump-started my career into being a full-time TTRPG freelancer (my portfolio, for the curious).
Now, two years later, I have finally put together the second book in the series. Dreams of Nu-wa, is based on the folklore of Nu-wa, the half-serpent goddess who created humans and repaired the sky. This time, the party has to investigate a curse that has changed everyone in the village next door into... mud.
The game and the previous adventure in the series will be on discount until 27th of July to celebrate its launch! Please give it a look if you're interested!
I'm imagining a big ol' spreadsheet of games and what dice mechanic(s) they use. Has this been done? Would this be useful for anyone else? I'm gonna go ahead and start it if there's not already something like it out there.
I'm currently designing a ttrpg, and am having an issue making weapons feel different without making it complicated.
For a bit of context: there is no damage dice. Weapon attacks are contented, with either an opponents weapon, or dodge skill in the case of a ranged weapon attack. In a melee weapon attack, who ever gets the higher roll wins the exchange and the damage is the difference between the two rolls. That number is then checked with the opponents damage threshold, scaling from minor wounds, severe wounds to critical wounds. Rolls are made using 2d6 plus a skill die, scaling from a d4 to a d12.
With that out of the way, my issues with weapons is that I want to make them feel different from each other. I started with adding "traits" to them, but felt that this would lead to a lot of looking up the rules with every time you wanna change a weapon.
To make the discussion concise, the weapons I'm currently working on are:
Club Knife Hand Axe Light Hammer Quarter-staff Great Club Woodcutter Axe Spear Maul Hunting bow Hunting crossbow
These weapons are chosen as the game is gritty, and martial weapons aren't readily available. The weapons available would be for the likes of hunters, labourers and farmers. Once I have a system for these I can implement that into higher end weapons. For ranged weapons, distance is measured in zones (close, short, medium, far).
How best would you categorize them, without a bunch of rules checking?
I recently started adding more and more random elements to my games when GMing. Things such as random travel encounters, NPC reaction rolls and weather rolls when in the wilderness.
Some of these are more fun than others, and some of these mechanics can create some really cool scenarios where even I as the GM is genuinely surprised.
Now I’m interested in hearing what your favorite mechanics/sub-systems are that create these scenarios where even the GM is surprised.
A few examples
Random weather changes makes little impact and I as the GM knows the potential outcomes and don’t really feel surprised in any way no matter where the die shows. I guess they can be really impactful depending on the scenario, but overall they feel a bit bland.
NPC reaction rolls on the other hand really have the power to make me as the GM think; “oh damn that’s not good for them” or “hmm ok, that’s interesting”. One examples was in last weeks session when the PCs where traveling through a dense forest and I had beforehand decided that if the encounter roll landed on a creature encounter it would be goblins. But then the reaction roll came up “helpful”, meaning that they had encounter helpful goblins in the middle of the forest. That created a unique encounter that surprised both me and the players.
Question
What are your favorite mechanics/sub-systems that have the chance of surprising even the GM.
I bought Affinity Suite but am still learning how to use it. What do you use that has worked for prototyping your sheets?
The best answer is to hire a designer, but humor me for now.
There are probably several helpful answers, which I want to hear. The main thing I'm drilling down toward is decisions and the idea of a game's "decision engine." Games are about decisions and effects, after all. TL;DR, how does your design lend to satisfying decisions, given a combo of rules and content?
Content, distinct from a game or rules, is the particular PCs, NPCs, areas, items, and scenarios that a game gets played with. Modules, maps, enemies.
Heavy rules add decision value because the GM and PCs have specific and concrete ways of doing things. Decisions are like answering a thorough question; you know exactly what kind of answer you're allowed to provide. However, you only understand what the outcome of your decision is (which is what really matters to you) if the game has low randomness and you had and used all relevant info (that info is content). Lots of people seem to make content for heavy rules, but it takes a lot of time.
Light rules add decision value because abstraction gives the GM and PCs flexibility. Decisions are like open-ended questions; you understand that your answer is more like your preference within the topic. However, if your preference is for a specific outcome, you had better think of an answer your GM will accept toward that outcome. There's unknowns in the abstract factors the GM considers (that is also content). Making content for light rules is fast and relatively easy.
Hard rules have numerical values, defined keywords, and mechanical ranks. When hard rules are balanced, decisions are like operating precision engineered machinery. There's elegance and rightness to it. If unbalanced, the decision value suffers a lot as options become sub-optimal. But each table might agree to not abuse exploits, because it wouldn't make their game more fun. It's also very hard to develop content for hard rules, but the kind of player to enjoy hard rules might be inclined to buy the designer's content.
Soft rules establish common practice with maxims, defined terms, and ideas. My favorite is, "Only call for a roll if failure would be interesting." These leave interpretation in the hands of the user. Designed well, they're elastic, giving tension to decisions and persuading you not to deviate without a hard 'no'. Designed poorly, they're mushy, collapsing and making things unclear when applied. These leave balance in the hands of the GM, who must decide when to apply them. The main benefit is that they're simpler than the very explicit hard rules, and they're easy to design content for.
Content and rules both put cognitive load on players as complexity accrues. Complex rules with complex content add up to extra high cognitive load on decisions. If you've grokked the game, that can feel awesome, like expert decisions. In my experience, players get an equivalent to that out of light, soft rules if the content is sufficiently complex. For example, an ongoing campaign in a narrative-heavy game which has developed heavy PCs, lore, NPCs, and factions, and puts them all into play in one scenario. Decisions can be complex for different reasons.
Satisfying decisions match player ability and total complexity really well, but beyond that every game seems to provide this in a different way. Mine is by closing loops in the narrative like a good "THE END." What is your game's combo of rules and content doing to create satisfying decisions?
Is there anything missing from my theory that I should consider?
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