Your favourite gaming mechanic?

[RomediDM]

Hmm... as my first post this may get me killed in the middle of the night lol. I like THAC0. Now let me explain haha. Is it necessary? No. Is it weird? Definitely. However, in my experience it has served its purpose like a big sign that says "you must be this tall to ride this ride." Not so much in that the player understands it as much as how they react to it. It has consistently let me know what kind of people I will be playing with, and usually it's not a big deal as a mechanic either.

I also like the concept of mega damage in Rifts. While I have heard lots of people talk about not enjoying it, I think it does a good job of paining a picture between exponential differences in power.

My least favorite is how games usually implement sneak damage. "You must be wielding ____, ____, or ____ to sneak attack." If the target doesn't see it coming, Superman should be able to sneak attack you with a forklift if he wants. I think that mechanic could be better handled in games.

 

[raleel]

Special effects in Mythras. Suddenly, fighters are way more fun. Covers so many scenarios with reach and weapon size that it's just gorgeous.

Backgrounds in 13th age. So simple, yet so flexible.

The Threat Level/noticed/exposed system of Black Seven. Great little stealth rpg, great system that is portable in lots of ways.

 

[Hand of Evil]

But as in several role-playing games, you may have 6 copies of your characters if your Game Master is a character killer.
On that Paranoia is more in the comedy of situations than in horror science fiction.

It is a "mechanic" that makes defines the game world/genre and the setting you are playing in, without it, Paranoia does not become the game it. Having six clones is not the same as having six copies of your character sheet (who does that).

 

[Celebrim]

I've always considered the BRP/Call of Cthulhu skill advancement mechanic the most elegant in the history of gaming.

I otherwise find the system clunky, but the idea of the life burner in Burning Wheel is one of the coolest ideas ever implemented. It's IMO still too clunky for a pen and paper RPG, but I'd love doing this sort of thing for a deep sandbox cRPG so that your chargen actually impacted how NPCs interacted with you and your starting circumstances.

Force Points in the WEG Star Wars system had a lasting impact on my designs and preferences as a GM. The idea that the player could choose moments to be truly awesome and thereby create those moments where the score changes to a fanfare is so crucial to creating the feel of certain sorts of stories.

The CharGen in 'Monsters and Other Childish Things', even if the game itself I ultimately consider almost unplayable as written, is some of the most elegant chargen I've ever seen in a game.

The escalation and stakes mechanics in Dogs in the Vineyard is the best integration of mechanical social conflict into the larger game I've ever seen in an RPG.

Although the system as a whole is a mess, the idea Storyteller systems connection between Willpower and Natures & Demeanors is one of the strongest systems for rewarding matching your play to your stated ethics I've seen.

Speaking of, the entire Pendragon system and in particular the idea of Personal Traits is just filled with awesome, and would certainly be the basis of inspiration of any system that I wanted to make that tried to reify morality and internal conflict.

 

[Blue]

Special effects in Mythras. Suddenly, fighters are way more fun. Covers so many scenarios with reach and weapon size that it's just gorgeous.

You've really piqued my interest because that is something I'm looking for. Can you tell us a little more about it?

Thanks!

 

[Blue]

My least favorite is how games usually implement sneak damage. "You must be wielding ____, ____, or ____ to sneak attack." If the target doesn't see it coming, Superman should be able to sneak attack you with a forklift if he wants. I think that mechanic could be better handled in games.

I agree. I think that is because in games like D&D, sneak damage is usually reserved as a class feature. I wish everyone could do it, but the class was just a lot more adroit about setting it up.

 

[raleel]

You've really piqued my interest because that is something I'm looking for. Can you tell us a little more about it?

Thanks!

Absolutely. I'll reference my own comment on Reddit, with some edits for clarity.

Attacks and Defense requires action points. Shields work amazing against arrows, but limit your ability to go through armor a bit because you don't have a big weapon. Two handers cut through armor, and parry melee with ease, but make you vulnerable to ranged (you have to evade, which can make you prone and that's bad). Two weapon fighting let's you fight at multiple reaches, which gives you far more versatility, as well as potentially having a thrown weapon - these are far better in Mythras than many other systems due to action point economy. Ranged weapons have serious range, but also have reload times (long bows are likely not firing much more than once every 5 seconds but have special effects to help).

Special effects are the real innovation though. Say you are a spearman (Long Reach) in the shield walls, fighting a filthy Saxon with a hand axe (Short Reach). You roll to hit, but miss. He chooses to defend anyways, choosing to spend an action point to parry, and succeeds, taking advantage of your miss and succeeds. He chooses the Close Range special effect and moves inside the reach of your spear.

Now your spear is not as good (being reduced to 1d3+1 damage instead of 1d8+1) and he has the advantage with his hand axe (no reduction in damage, and now he can hit you). He attacks and hits! But you defend with your shield, a Huge weapon, and it blocks all the damage easily.

Remember how I said it's a weapon? You spend an action point and attack with it, because it can fight at Short Reach. You roll a critical! The filthy Saxon goes to block with his puny axe (Size Small), trying desperately to just avoid a special effect, even if it won't block the relatively small damage from the shield. He misses the defense! You get two special effects and choose to Bash him, knocking him back a meter or two, and potentially tripping him, as well as Blinding (only available on a crit) him temporarily, to go with your damage. You follow up, looming over him with your spear, and he has almost no chance to defend....

It flows surprisingly smoothly and quickly, to be honest. Combats rarely last more than 2-3 rounds of action points (2-3 per player). I can run a combat for 5 players against 4:1 odds in an hour, and have seen even up ones go much faster. Hit locations are a thing, and hit points don't scale, so your spear is going to be a very good weapon for a long time.

Honestly, best combat system I've seen in a long long time, and frankly, might be the best I've ever seen for a more simulationist system.

 

[raleel]

I agree. I think that is because in games like D&D, sneak damage is usually reserved as a class feature. I wish everyone could do it, but the class was just a lot more adroit about setting it up.

absolutely true. And it's tied to weapon damage, so they need to constrain the damage or we have Ye Old Two Handeded Rogues

since you were curious about Mythras and special effects, it deals with this by having a skill penalty for defending from behind (half skill, which is really painful). If you actually ambush/surprise someone, they suffer an additional Special Effect from being ambushed, which is often handy for doing things like Choose Location (Head) for the hit. If you are actually a train assassin with the assassination combat style trait, you can get access to the Kill Silently Special Effect, which lets you prevent their crying out as well as your bonus effect, and if you get a big hit, they fail their Endurance check to keep functioning.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Exploding Dice from Lof5R and 7th Sea 1st edition.

Knowing that you have multiple chances on a single roll to hit high TNs amps the tension dramatically. You throw your first set of dice, hoping to reach the TN. You add up all the d10s and find that even if you don't reach it, you hope to see one of those beautiful '0's. For if one or more do appear, then you get the thrill of picking those up and rolling then again to get your total even higher. And if by some chance another '0' or more appear, then the thrill increases even more.

Rolling d20s or d% are good, but they're one-and-done. You roll, you see the result, you know what has happened. But with Exploding d10s, there's always potentially higher and higher numbers on the horizon after each throw.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Exploding Dice from Lof5R and 7th Sea 1st edition.

That is a great one. It's funny how exciting a simple re-roll can be.