Of Mooks, Plot Armor, and ttRPGs

[kenada]

I think I agree with you, but this very much sounds like the "design a board game, and then describe fiction around it" approach. You have to do a lot of work if you want the board state to keep presenting interesting choices and remain consistent.

I think I also agree, but I would include the caveat that the game designer should be doing most of the work. They’re going to provide the procedures, principles, etc that allow the GM to run the game in a way that keeps things honest. After that, you just have to make sure you execute correctly (which admittedly is not always easy, especially when trying new games).

I obviously don't know your game obviously, but the problem I usually see is either that the board state presents trivial optimization problems (which are generally not even considered as optimization problems for narrative reasons) or you lose a degree of optimization by not allowing the players to avoid failure points. That is, the players declarations are fixed in relative time, thus that whatever they do will have an equivalent impact (or if we're talking variable completion, an equivalent magnitude impact) on the outcome. Consider trying to break into a castle using skill checks based on objective DCs, vs. a flat skill challenge to do the same thing. It is possible in the former case to present a course of action that calls for more or less rolls, and not in the second, even if the resulting fiction between the two is otherwise identical (admittedly a really unlikely and probably contrived scenario).

I’ve linked a few reports already, but there are others in the five words commentary thread.

The gist of the system is it started out as a hack of OSE and WWN that evolved into its own thing. Skill checks are versus a flat range¹. Skills ranks range from +1 to +5 (−4 for untrained) and attributes go from −3 to +3. Rolls are 2d10 (10−/11–16/17–22/23+ for Failure/Mixed Success/Complete Success/Critical Success). The reason for doing things this way is to reduce or eliminate the places where I can put pressure on the game unfairly. When there is a Failure and Mixed Success, I get to apply consequences. Those should be communicated up front (which is something I admittedly could do better), so players can reason about their course of action. Players do decide the method (skill) and approach (attribute), but it has to make sense in the fiction. The plan is for skills to have scope for what they can do, so you can’t just Burglary to persuade someone no matter how much better it is than your other skills. I don’t have skill challenges, but I do use clocks.

I would use a combination of approaches to handle the proposed infiltration scenario. The basic play loop handles time very concretely (10-minute turns while exploring). You can only travel so far or do so much in a turn. When the PCs encounter a situation they want to change, they can make Skill Checks. What’s appropriate will come down to the situation (e.g., different skills are appropriate for convincing someone to let you through versus picking open a locked door). Depending on how they roll, there might be consequences. If the scope of what they want is too large for a single Skill Check, I would put it to a clock (e.g., post #202 where the party tries to convince Old Gregg to give them information). Clocks can also be consequences (like a clock to track guard alertness). If the alertness clock goes off, the guards’ presence will increase, making the infiltration more difficult. Being a player-facing and manipulable mechanic, the players can try to push it back by taking appropriate steps, but failure could also pull it forward. There are trade-offs and consequences.

Anyway, the players get through the castle however they get through the castle. I’m not beholden to a particular solution. If they get into trouble, they have ways to navigate it (including straight up fleeing if necessary). The idea is to set up the situation then see how things play out. The mechanics facilitate that by letting me respond as strongly as the situation demands (you snuck into the castle and murdered the duke, therefore guards!) while avoiding the problems that come from having responsibility for setting the scenario, adjudicating it, and deciding how and what consequences there will be.

The appeal of a simulationist model is that actions naturally move the player different distances toward their objective, and do so without any risk of someone tweaking the board state, which gives you at least two axes to plan lines of play along: how many failures points, chance of success at any given point and then likely more (resource expenditure, severity of board state at failure, etc.).

It seems like concern here is about maintaining causality and having strong processes for play. Objective DCs are one approach that works because they allow players to reason about outcomes. If the DM can decide, that creates risk of impropriety (e.g., pushing the outcome in a desired direction) even when none is intended.

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[1]: Except for attacks. Everything uses the same basic math, but attacks are made versus Armor. It still has the same ranges of degrees, but creatures and PCs have different Armor values depending on proficiency and gear and whether they are using Dodge, Block, or Parry. In combat, the Mixed Success result is (typically) to do minimum damage.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It’s not clear to me how anticlimax is a gamist concern either. If your skilled play results in solving the adventure trivially, then that’s what should happen. You won. That’s the point. Anything else (such as trying to force a particular outcome or feel to the events) is antithetical to gamism. I guess that could be a type of gamist anticlimax, but I’m not sure that’s what’s intended.

The idea is, however, if the setup doesn't at least try to throw up a challenge--and in the case of some old simulationist ones it didn't--it isn't very gamist. Cooking the books isn't gamist, but setting things up with a challenge in mind in the first place kind of is. Because if most things are either nearly impossible or really easy, its not very interesting from a game standpoint. Whereas to the simulationists, that's only relevant to the degree the setting doesn't make sense when its true.

(I mean, to use an example that comes up fairly often, walking into a problem you can't deal with and at least had to make extraordinary efforts to foresee wouldn't have been considered beyond the pale for them. The most you'd need to do was make sure the situation was such that it made sense in the setting. For example if you've got a dragon who kills everybody who gets within a given area, and where visibility is such that you aren't liable to realize until its too late, all you'd know is that an area had a reputation for people going in and not coming out--which could be signalling a lot of different things in a gamist context, the simplest being "proceed with caution", but in this case the only thing that was liable to help was avoiding it altogether. And to the simulationists in RGFA, that'd have been okay occasionally.)

 

[kenada]

The idea is, however, if the setup doesn't at least try to throw up a challenge--and in the case of some old simulationist ones it didn't--it isn't very gamist. Cooking the books isn't gamist, but setting things up with a challenge in mind in the first place kind of is. Because if most things are either nearly impossible or really easy, its not very interesting from a game standpoint. Whereas to the simulationists, that's only relevant to the degree the setting doesn't make sense when its true.

It’s not necessary for the GM to provide the challenge. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible to find another way to accomplish the adventure (because only the provided challenges could be done). The only way I can see to prevent gamism (as @Pedantic notes) is to undermine the board state (e.g., the GM changes things to prevent success or protect a desired outcome). If the world is operating on a consistent basis, then that should be a place where a gamist can play.

(I mean, to use an example that comes up fairly often, walking into a problem you can't deal with and at least had to make extraordinary efforts to foresee wouldn't have been considered beyond the pale for them. The most you'd need to do was make sure the situation was such that it made sense in the setting. For example if you've got a dragon who kills everybody who gets within a given area, and where visibility is such that you aren't liable to realize until its too late, all you'd know is that an area had a reputation for people going in and not coming out--which could be signalling a lot of different things in a gamist context, the simplest being "proceed with caution", but in this case the only thing that was liable to help was avoiding it altogether. And to the simulationists in RGFA, that'd have been okay occasionally.)

“Impossible challenge” sounds a lot like “requires lateral thinking”.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Personally, I'm somewhat comfortable seeing that kind of distinction between pre-prep and midstream-prep as something that informs me as a GM, but without having it be binding. I can mess with things as we go, but I'm responsible for the same considerations of fairness and simulation as when I'm prepping-- the pitfalls of prepping as we go is a needle for me to thread with my skill, rather than an inevitability. Similarly, a little fate isn't out of the question for most of the fiction being simulated (or reality, if you believe in that sort of thing.)

Another option is to smooth it over with adjudication, not every house requires something interesting, provided there's also less time invested, regardless of if they have security systems. The world might be a world, but the GMs narration still has to be a camera, and much as a documentarian does, what that camera focuses on is still an artistic question. The GM could brush past what's found if they try and brute force every house, or even impose a simulative consequence, framed as a question "Since you're brute forcing it, I can let you do that to find the correct house, but I demand X spell slots in exchange, to reflect the resources you're losing since every house on the block has security, otherwise you'll have to figure out which one is the one you're looking for since brute forcing it would be too time-consuming in terms of game time"

 

[Thomas Shey]

It’s not necessary for the GM to provide the challenge. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible to find another way to accomplish the adventure (because only the provided challenges could be done). The only way I can see to prevent gamism (as @Pedantic notes) is to undermine the board state (e.g., the GM changes things to prevent success or protect a desired outcome). If the world is operating on a consistent basis, then that should be a place where a gamist can play.


“Impossible challenge” sounds a lot like “requires lateral thinking”.

That works a whole lot better in games that give you the tools to apply that. Keep in mind the response of some GMs in the context would be "No one has managed to solve this problem in the last decade; what makes you think you should be able to?"

This is particularly the case since a lot of sim games apparently ran to the sandboxy; as such the GM felt no obligation that there was going to be any practical solution within the PCs reach. They were supposed to just go off and find something else to do (and "come back later" wasn't necessarily going to be an answer, since a lot of people in that category weren't dealing with systems with much of a power slope).

 

[Pedantic]

I think I also agree, but I would include the caveat that the game designer should be doing most of the work. They’re going to provide the procedures, principles, etc that allow the GM to run the game in a way that keeps things honest. After that, you just have to make sure you execute correctly (which admittedly is not always easy, especially when trying new games).

We agree here! I'm just very sad at how much easier it is to pay for crunchy design work in a cardboard box to be enjoyed over 2-6 hours, than it is to pay for crunchy design work in some books to be enjoyed over a year. I will 100% pay the Kingdom Death prices, even without the miniatures if someone would just do all the mind-number design work for me.

I’ve linked a few reports already, but there are others in the five words commentary thread.

The gist of the system is it started out as a hack of OSE and WWN that evolved into its own thing. Skill checks are versus a flat range¹. Skills ranks range from +1 to +5 (−4 for untrained) and attributes go from −3 to +3. Rolls are 2d10 (10−/11–16/17–22/23+ for Failure/Mixed Success/Complete Success/Critical Success). The reason for doing things this way is to reduce or eliminate the places where I can put pressure on the game unfairly. When there is a Failure and Mixed Success, I get to apply consequences. Those should be communicated up front (which is something I admittedly could do better), so players can reason about their course of action. Players do decide the method (skill) and approach (attribute), but it has to make sense in the fiction. The plan is for skills to have scope for what they can do, so you can’t just Burglary to persuade someone no matter how much better it is than your other skills. I don’t have skill challenges, but I do use clocks.

This is cool! You're systematizing something I used to throw out in the uh...I cannot remember the term we settled on, the MMI discussions, where you specifically provide the consequences of a course of action and/or the odds (or means to calculate the odds) when a player proposes a course of action. I was throwing it out there as a crazy thing to do in response to every player declaration, but if that's the core game loop and baked in to action declaration, it's a lot clearer.

My only concern there is that players can only see consequences one declaration into the future, which has some warping effects on how they plan things. I count it as an advantage of a specified DC system that players know the total scope of all possible results of an action, but not how those results will play out in situ, on the current board. That, and personally, I much prefer that experts break the RNG for some rolls at some point, but that doesn't really work in a system like this where skills don't have variable difficulty tasks assigned to them. Really, my preferred system gives players lots and lots of techniques under the guise of skills, and then offers a push your luck mechanism to reach for stuff you haven't unlocked yet.

It seems like concern here is about maintaining causality and having strong processes for play. Objective DCs are one approach that works because they allow players to reason about outcomes. If the DM can decide, that creates risk of impropriety (e.g., pushing the outcome in a desired direction) even when none is intended.

Yes, but I don't even think it's malicious, it's just hard to play a game with an unknowable board. An unknown board is doable, but the fact that it can and will change, and in ways that aren't necessarily divinable from the outset (presumably they can be inferred to some degree from the fiction, but I'd rather they be specified by it) struggles to hold form as a game for me. It sounds like you're using clocks to delay the onset of lots of consequences happening, which is an interesting solution I need to think about.

That works a whole lot better in games that give you the tools to apply that. Keep in mind the response of some GMs in the context would be "No one has managed to solve this problem in the last decade; what makes you think you should be able to?"

This is particularly the case since a lot of sim games apparently ran to the sandboxy; as such the GM felt no obligation that there was going to be any practical solution within the PCs reach. They were supposed to just go off and find something else to do (and "come back later" wasn't necessarily going to be an answer, since a lot of people in that category weren't dealing with systems with much of a power slope).

This is very much where my sim credentials fall down. I love littering my wholly complete, self-contained worlds with all kind of surprisingly level appropriate problems, admittedly mixed in with whatever else you know, should be there. If my PCs get any advantage over the "average" adventurer, it's that they're lucky enough to rarely find themselves in environments entirely lacking something within their paygrade.

 

[kenada]

That works a whole lot better in games that give you the tools to apply that. Keep in mind the response of some GMs in the context would be "No one has managed to solve this problem in the last decade; what makes you think you should be able to?"

This is particularly the case since a lot of sim games apparently ran to the sandboxy; as such the GM felt no obligation that there was going to be any practical solution within the PCs reach. They were supposed to just go off and find something else to do (and "come back later" wasn't necessarily going to be an answer, since a lot of people in that category weren't dealing with systems with much of a power slope).

What you’re describing is similar to OSR play, which has gamist qualities. The answer’s not on your sheet, player skill over character skill, encounters are not necessarily balanced to the PCs’ abilities, etc. The only way such a setup would interfere with gamism is for the GM to block a particular course of action (or adjust things behind the screen to a preferred outcome), which seems like it would also be a violation of simulationist priorities.

 

[kenada]

We agree here! I'm just very sad at how much easier it is to pay for crunchy design work in a cardboard box to be enjoyed over 2-6 hours, than it is to pay for crunchy design work in some books to be enjoyed over a year. I will 100% pay the Kingdom Death prices, even without the miniatures if someone would just do all the mind-number design work for me.

We get our crunchy gameplay from Middara, so I’m not worried about it in the RPG space. I just really wanted something that would support the kind of exploration-driven game I run, and nothing was really cutting it in the way I wanted. Worlds Without Number came close, but it’s designed more for adventure-based sandbox play rather than exploration-driven.

This is cool! You're systematizing something I used to throw out in the uh...I cannot remember the term we settled on, the MMI discussions, where you specifically provide the consequences of a course of action and/or the odds (or means to calculate the odds) when a player proposes a course of action. I was throwing it out there as a crazy thing to do in response to every player declaration, but if that's the core game loop and baked in to action declaration, it's a lot clearer.

I got it from narrativist games. Blades in the Dark and Apocalypse World are big influences. I just have to be careful that I’m not causing problems with how I use the mechanics in my game. (Finding the right dice mechanic was hell though. I went through 2d6 → 3d6 → 2d6 → 2d10 and recently explored opposed d20 rolls before deciding to stick with 2d10.)

My only concern there is that players can only see consequences one declaration into the future, which has some warping effects on how they plan things. I count it as an advantage of a specified DC system that players know the total scope of all possible results of an action, but not how those results will play out in situ, on the current board.

There are some details I omitted for brevity, but I might as well include them here. Some effects request a Defense Check, which you roll plus the category (Resilience or Magic Resistance) + approach (attribute). You can opt for a Complete Success, but you must instead make the Defense Check to avoid gaining stress instead of potentially suffering the original effect (1d4, min on Complete Success, max on Critical Success). You can do the same thing for a consequence if you don’t want it. There’s a limit to how much stress you can gain (10–16, depending on Endurance and Willpower). If opting to avoid a consequence or effect puts you over, you’re unconscious until the end of the current 10-minute turn. After that, you’re back but still at your limit. Being at your limit is bad. Healing (magical and non-magical) causes stress gain, and so do some other effects that manipulate your body. Negative effects (from monsters or privation) can kill you when you’re at your limit. It’s part of the attrition model along with HP, MP, inventory, and the stuff you bring on your expedition. Anyway, being able to call for a Defense Check gives players control over how consequences affect them, but there is an element of risk to it since you may need that stress later.¹

Something worth pointing out is the system is oriented towards “living world” play, so the boundaries aren’t always neat. You might be pushing into a dungeon then need to pull back to regroup and recover in town for a while. The plan is to balance that out with a faction system (both at the campaign and dungeon level), so stuff will continue to happen while you are away. Play is ultimately about managing your risk while making the best decision you can for the current situation. There are ways to influence that though (see above and also below), and smart tactics do pay off. Poisoning the dragon (post #223) instead of trying to fight it directly saved on resources. That was a smart tactic. Walking right into the obvious trap and taking it in the face was not a smart tactic. Trying to carefully extract the werephasms from the crystal was smart, but it didn’t go perfectly smoothly. If they’d just shattered the crystal, that would have been bad. The party would have been fighting twelve energy-draining monsters at once. Ouch. However, based on past discussions with you, this might not be your kind of thing. I know you prefer being able to reason more fully about the move space, which I think is what you were getting at in your quote above.

That, and personally, I much prefer that experts break the RNG for some rolls at some point, but that doesn't really work in a system like this where skills don't have variable difficulty tasks assigned to them. Really, my preferred system gives players lots and lots of techniques under the guise of skills, and then offers a push your luck mechanism to reach for stuff you haven't unlocked yet.

That’s handled by the class system. Classes are broken into groups, which provide a rank and bonus based on the rank. Classes in the warrior group add their rank to their attack roll. They’re just hands down better at killing things than the other classes. Classes in the expert group can reroll a die on a non-combat Skill Check. That’s currently limited to rank-times per session, but I’m thinking of moving it over to MP. Mages get more MP than the other classes (everyone gets 3×level naturally, but mages add 3×rank to their MP total on top of what they get naturally). Psionics (if they become a thing) will interact with MP differently. This is the emergent thing I mentioned earlier. They can use scrolls and stuff like mages, but it will (probably) screw with their MP economy. There’s space for other types of groups as well. I could see having bespoke classes and groups for an courtly intrigue campaign. The main customization is via skills, specialities, and proficiencies that you buy with EXP.

There is also a mechanic for making sacrifices to do better. It’s in flux right now. In the past, it gave you extra dice. Currently, it increases the effect of your result. You can sacrifice something for +1. If it’s large, that’s another +1. If it’s high-quality (and HQ is a thing you can make in the crafting system), it’s another +1. Thus a large and high quality item is +3. Previously it was +1d6 per. I need to poke at the math to see if it does what I want. That’s one of the problems with finding the right dice and distribution for the range of modifiers I wanted to support (roughly −3 to +8). There are also mechanics for group actions and help. Your degree of success on help gives a bonus to the other person’s roll. Group actions have everyone roll and take the best, but every Failure reduces the degree of success by −1 (currently imposes a flat −2, but that seems confusing and result in situations where the consequence for Failure is nothing). You can buy off Failures by paying stress.

Yes, but I don't even think it's malicious, it's just hard to play a game with an unknowable board.

I don’t think it’s malicious either. It’s just a risk and something that can happen with certain approaches to GMing. I think it’s important to understand when these things can happen, so everyone can make sure they’re playing in the right kind of game.

An unknown board is doable, but the fact that it can and will change, and in ways that aren't necessarily divinable from the outset (presumably they can be inferred to some degree from the fiction, but I'd rather they be specified by it) struggles to hold form as a game for me. It sounds like you're using clocks to delay the onset of lots of consequences happening, which is an interesting solution I need to think about.

Clocks help with managing effects that may trigger in the future. It’s what Apocalypse World would call “disclaiming decision-making”. I’m putting whether the guards come or how Old Gregg reacts to the mechanics instead of deciding based on my understanding of how I think things should work. Something that’s still in flux is how knowledge works. There are no knowledge checks per se. Characters have experiences they can use to roll Wisdom for Skill Checks, but you probably just know stuff related to that. There are Investigate and Research skills, but they’re new to the current revision. The idea is Investigate is something you would do while exploring to get more information on the current situation while Research would be used for long term projects during downtime. Magicians definitely will use it to add spells to their book, but anyone can use it to learn other things (e.g., maybe reveal information on a dungeon they found or something like that). It’s a work-in-progress with a lot of iteration, so stuff is up in the air still in places. This in particular.

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[1]: Stress evolved out of System Strain from Worlds Without Number, but there is a Blades in the Dark influence here as well. Resistance rolls are kind of like saving throws for anything, which I like because it lets you hit hard with consequences if that is what makes sense. We’ve faced some pretty nasty ones (including harm 4, which is death). Anyway, the idea behind System Strain in WWN is to allow PCs to be at max HP most of the time while still providing for attrition.

 

[Lanefan]

It’s not necessary for the GM to provide the challenge. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be possible to find another way to accomplish the adventure (because only the provided challenges could be done). The only way I can see to prevent gamism (as @Pedantic notes) is to undermine the board state (e.g., the GM changes things to prevent success or protect a desired outcome). If the world is operating on a consistent basis, then that should be a place where a gamist can play.

I'm not quite sure I follow the reasoning here.

If the world is operating on a consistent basis (i.e. its simulation engine is chugging along nicely), how would a gamist be able to make much more of it than anyone else?

Or are you implying (intentionally or otherwise) that the gamist would look to "game the world" and find exploits within its consistency?

“Impossible challenge” sounds a lot like “requires lateral thinking”.

I thought much the same thing on reading what you quoted.

 

[kenada]

I'm not quite sure I follow the reasoning here.

If the world is operating on a consistent basis (i.e. its simulation engine is chugging along nicely), how would a gamist be able to make much more of it than anyone else?

I’m pushing back on the idea that gamism needs the GM to provide challenges. All you need to play is a consistent and knowable board state, which a simulated world approach provides naturally. If the treasure is in a cave, and we have the means to burrow to it, then that should work because we’d expect that to work according to the rules of our world (following the simulation). In contrast are approaches that have hidden rules or state.

For example, if the GM wants to ensure certain narrative beats are hit or dramatic moments happen, then they’re going to adjust things to make sure the game works correctly. A clever ploy may or may not work depending on how it fits into things. That would be a hidden and unknowable board state. That approach to running is not bad, but it works against gamism because you don’t know necessarily what moves will be valid. Obvious things may work until they don’t. The incentive is to follow the cues.

Or are you implying (intentionally or otherwise) that the gamist would look to "game the world" and find exploits within its consistency?

In a sense, yes. A gamist is going to look at the possibilities and try to find the optimal path to their goal. Some times that’s going to look like something a bit subversive (such as burrowing to the treasure instead of going through the dungeon properly). Other times it’s going to look like the seemingly impossible (eliminating the dragon threat that no one can even approach). However, I would be careful with the word “exploit” to avoid negative connotations. I don’t think it’s about taking advantage for its own sake.