Should time spent on system mechanics be based in interest or importance/risk?

[Blue]

Some mechanical aspects of the game can be very short or quite involved. By mechanical I mean actually interacting with the system, such as rolling in D&D, not the entire scene.

This is a generic RPG question, more for thought about design then to talk about any specific system. It's possible to read this question as "what should a DM do", but I'm not aiming there; I'm looking at "what should the system offer".

Let me give a few examples of mechanical time:

1. Trying to convince the duchess about the threat to her duchy from her vassal may take 45 minutes by wall clock time, but only involve six skill checks, so it's got a very low mechanics time to real time ratio.

2. With a combat in a D&D-like will often have a good amount of the time involved the mechanics - how far can you move, are you triggering attacks of opportunity, did you hit, did you save, applying conditions, removing hit points. This could be a long scene by the clock, and one with a high mechanics to total time ratio.

3. On the other hand, selling a load of art objects might also have a high mechanics to wall time ratio - but it's just one roll by a character to see how well they were at finding buyers and negotiating because the players may not find it interesting to spend wall time on it.

So, I've been tossing around thoughts about designing around the idea of short vs. extended mechanical aspects (#3 vs. #2) based around ... well, that's where my question comes in.

Originally I was thinking risk. Working out an escalation level.

The lowest level would be no rolls at all. Normal characters buying mundane equipment they can afford. Do it by the book.

A minimal level would be minimal risk or reward - selling off goblin swords or other treasure that's not a big deal of wealth relative to the PCs (which could be 1000s of gold of gems at higher levels, as long as it's still "not a big deal"), getting into an arm wrestling/archery/whatever contest, high level characters vs. wolves. This would be resolved by a single roll.

Above that might be meaningful, and be a few rolls. A bar brawl, finding a buyer for a magic item, convincing the captured guard to tell you layout of the hobgoblin encampment. (Again, it's not based on "how hard" - the last might be quite difficult.)

Above that would be dangerous/of large impact but not life threatening. A fight where people can get really hurt, but will likely end in surrender/capture. Convincing a sheriff you aren't bandits and he shouldn't jail you. Robbing the tax men. Disarming the blade trap on a chest. Selling the artifact you found.

Finally we get to lethal. Talking the baron out of hanging you. A fight to the death. Disarming the poison gas room trap.

(Actually, there could be another level where your life is unimportant compared to succeeding. And such martyrs are born.)

This looked good, except some of these I felt the *players* may want to spend more time on. Having a bar brawl with a bunch of known NPCs in their home base town might be right up their alley, even if it's not a huge deal in the big picture, nor advance in the plot.

The flip side is that I think many RPGs make everyone mechanically competent and interesting in combat because it will take a long time mechanically and they want to make sure everyone is entertained and has parts to play. But if there's a system that focuses on interest instead, you don't need everyone to be good in combat /if/ the players aren't interested in that aspect.

An example of this might be a thieves guild campaign where the vast majority of combats are dealt with quickly with some more abstracted rolls, perhaps only from the few characters with combat focus (I'm thinking Elliot from Leverage) while everyone gets involved and spends time on other aspects of the heists. Or most scenes are just a few rolls from the impacted characters (again, thinking Leverage).

So, assuming that had different levels of mechanical resolution that could reflect non-system aspects (how well the player gave the speech, tactics during combat, that you knew the password even though the guard didn't recognize you, that you had scouted the area and planned a stealthy entrance), as a player and a DM would you prefer:

More important/risky situations involve more system involvement.

VS.

More interesting to players involve more system involvement.

The majority of cases importance and player interest those go hand-in-hand, so this is a question about the times they don't.

EDIT: (Also putting this in a comment so the previous readers see it.)
Discussing with [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] made me realize I never said why this difference was so important. When I originally was playing with this idea in design, I was picturing a mechanical risk/reward magnitude rating, which is at partially under player control in that the characters can often escalate or attempt to de-escalate. So that the complexity given also put boundaries on the magnitude of the outcome (either way). So a bar-brawl, archery contest, or selling low-worth (compared to you) items might be low magnitude - just a single or few rolls, but no big deal who wins - you got 20% more or less than expected, or you have bragging rights and a trophy.

This also means that I can run "easy" combats quickly (mechanically) and not take up a lot of session time, without inflicting more risk on the characters by "stealing" an opportunity for them to play out every move.

But if it should be interest based (which seems to be where more people are talking about, and in line with my own rethinking that spawned this thread), then I don't have that nice "this will be minor" through "this will be (socially/physically/etc.) lethal"

It also allows games that each table can determine what's the points they want to make the "everyone participates" - many editions of D&D have that locked in as combat, any many other pillars have diminishing returns for more characters able to do a task. You don't need five trackers often. But a game with a different focus could have combat done by "the one character good at it" while everyone is good at other facets and wants to be able to use the system to focus on it.

 

[Grimkrieg]

I like where you are going with this.

I was thinking of a system that could shift between levels of rules granularity based on player desire/focus a few days ago, so based on my current thinking I would go with 'more interesting to players'. I am very interested to read what people think.

 

[Lanefan]

Interesting ideas in theory but I'm not sure they could be hard-coded into any game system mostly because there will be such wild variation in interest in different things at each table - never mind that said interest might not even remain consistent at the same table from week to week depending on the mood of the players (and maybe DM) when they arrive at the session.

I've seen this many times - one week there'll be no getting away from minutiae, and every little thing will be resolved down to the last detail (e.g. haggling over mundane equipment prices); and then the next week it's "oh, let's just rubber-time all that and get on with it" (e.g. what most of the party gets up to in town for three weeks while waiting for one or two characters to train a new level).

And on a larger scale, some tables love sweating the details of what you classify as "lowest" and "minimal" level things while others just want to skip all that and get to the "dangerous" and "lethal" level action; and there's game systems that cater to both types.

To answer your final question, I don't think it's an either-or but more of a 4-way:

Low risk-low interest = little or no system involvement, or just handwave
High risk-low interest = the least amount of system involvement required to resolve, but no less
Low risk-high interest = probably far more system involvement than it really needs, depending how the players approach a given situation
High risk-high interest = as much system involvement as the players and-or DM deem necessary

Hope that helps!

Lanefan

 

[Grimkrieg]

Interesting ideas in theory but I'm not sure they could be hard-coded into any game system mostly because there will be such wild variation in interest in different things at each table - never mind that said interest might not even remain consistent at the same table from week to week depending on the mood of the players (and maybe DM) when they arrive at the session.

I've seen this many times - one week there'll be no getting away from minutiae, and every little thing will be resolved down to the last detail (e.g. haggling over mundane equipment prices); and then the next week it's "oh, let's just rubber-time all that and get on with it" (e.g. what most of the party gets up to in town for three weeks while waiting for one or two characters to train a new level).

And on a larger scale, some tables love sweating the details of what you classify as "lowest" and "minimal" level things while others just want to skip all that and get to the "dangerous" and "lethal" level action; and there's game systems that cater to both types.

To answer your final question, I don't think it's an either-or but more of a 4-way:

Low risk-low interest = little or no system involvement, or just handwave
High risk-low interest = the least amount of system involvement required to resolve, but no less
Low risk-high interest = probably far more system involvement than it really needs, depending how the players approach a given situation
High risk-high interest = as much system involvement as the players and-or DM deem necessary

Hope that helps!

Lanefan

This is why I leaned toward letting the players decide the focus. One player might want his duel with a hated foe resolved down to excruciating detail, while the rest of the party chooses less granular combat in order to watch. It probably does not work (yet), but it is an interesting idea for a mechanic.

As for risk level, I once played around with the idea of letting players choose a risk level during the game, and modifying certain aspects based on that. It was an interesting experiment, but I did not follow through with it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

So, assuming that had different levels of mechanical resolution that could reflect non-system aspects (how well the player gave the speech, tactics during combat, that you knew the password even though the guard didn't recognize you, that you had scouted the area and planned a stealthy entrance), as a player and a DM would you prefer:

More important/risky situations involve more system involvement.

VS.

More interesting to players involve more system involvement.

The majority of cases importance and player interest those go hand-in-hand, so this is a question about the times they don't.

I'm having trouble understanding your post. What exactly do you mean by 'system involvement' here? Are you talking about sheer number of decisions made by the player before resolving a task? Or complexity of the mechanical back-end, like rolling on charts to determine which other charts to roll on? If the player spends a lot of out-of-game time setting up the battlefield, by rigging a complex machine to drop boulders that sweep the enemy into a river, is that high-involvement or low-involvement when the entire combat is resolved by the enemy making one saving throw?

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION] - are you familiar with systems like HeroWars/Quest, Burning Wheel and others (4e can be run like this for non combat resolution, but not for combat using the published rules) which distinguish between "simple" (one roll - think a D&D skill check) and "complex" (multi-roll - think a D&D combat or a 4e skill challenge) resolution, with the GM and players deciding (by consensus) which to use based on the stakes of the situation?

This sort of approach is normally also used with "say 'yes' or roll the dice" - ie if there is nothing at stake, and no reason to suppose that failure would yield anything interesting, then no resolution mechanics are invoked at all.

If you're not familiar with these games, you might find they have some interesting ideas for you.

(If you are familiar with them, then disregard this post.)

 

[Blue]

I'm having trouble understanding your post. What exactly do you mean by 'system involvement' here? Are you talking about sheer number of decisions made by the player before resolving a task? Or complexity of the mechanical back-end, like rolling on charts to determine which other charts to roll on? If the player spends a lot of out-of-game time setting up the battlefield, by rigging a complex machine to drop boulders that sweep the enemy into a river, is that high-involvement or low-involvement when the entire combat is resolved by the enemy making one saving throw?

Let me give the same scene, with different levels of mechanical involvement.

Characters spend an evening at a masquerade ball, trying to make a contact with hidden rebels against the crown. Players declare what their characters are doing trying to work out who it is: dropping into conversations a codeword they had previous overheard, looking for people who are only pretending to support the king, trying to follow the money on elvish bows the reels had, gossiping in the line dances with many partners and taking up the guard captain to see if slips up and tells any of his suspicions or things he's found about them.

Example low system interaction: DM has them each make an appropriate skill roll at the end, possibly with different targets. Results are then determined based on that.

Example middle system interaction: Initial rolls are made to discover some opportunities but also failures are advancing tracks (or clocks) to either bring suspicious down on themselves from the king's men, and also advance the possibility that they will scare off the rebels (either by making it too hot or seeming like they might be king's men themselves). Multiple passes occur until enough successes allow contact to be made (only if the "scare off" track isn't full), the PCs are discovered by king's men, or time runs out (end of the ball). Players adjust actions after a pass based on how they feel it is going (not useful, bring too much heat, etc.)

Example high system interaction: a social combat system is used, allowing gains/losses of reputation and webs of trust. Like tactics in a D&D combat, things like unveiling hidden secrets, inspiring speeches, bribes, and other limited use resources are common.

 

[Blue]

[MENTION=20564]Blue[/MENTION] - are you familiar with systems like HeroWars/Quest, Burning Wheel and others (4e can be run like this for non combat resolution, but not for combat using the published rules) which distinguish between "simple" (one roll - think a D&D skill check) and "complex" (multi-roll - think a D&D combat or a 4e skill challenge) resolution, with the GM and players deciding (by consensus) which to use based on the stakes of the situation?

This sort of approach is normally also used with "say 'yes' or roll the dice" - ie if there is nothing at stake, and no reason to suppose that failure would yield anything interesting, then no resolution mechanics are invoked at all.

If you're not familiar with these games, you might find they have some interesting ideas for you.

(If you are familiar with them, then disregard this post.)

I am familiar with them, but it's a great post regardless because not everyone will be - hey, if my questions get other people thinking as well then that's already a win.

Absolutely "complex" checks, where multiple are needed. 4e skill challenges as a concept are right on the money, though there implementation sin't robust enough for a common mechanic.

I'm also mixing in some thoughts from Dogs in the Vineyard, where players can escalate conflicts (increasing risk (to everyone) to bring more resources to bear on a scene).

And while it's not spelled out above (more to not complicate the question any more), I'm also thinking some 7th Seas concept where you get a limited number of successes (raises in their parlance) and use those to both achieve what you want and avoid consequence - so often you need to accept more consequences on yourself in order to complete all of your goals, or alternately only complete one or two but come up without serious consequences/"damage".

 

[pemerton]

4e skill challenges as a concept are right on the money, though there implementation sin't robust enough for a common mechanic.

This could be a point of contention between us, but let's leave that for another day/thread!

I'm also mixing in some thoughts from Dogs in the Vineyard, where players can escalate conflicts (increasing risk (to everyone) to bring more resources to bear on a scene).

Your post made me think of this too, but I know DitV by reputation rather than play (I have a PDF but haven't read it yet!).

In Cortex+ Heroic some players (depending on details of PC builds, which in turn are meant to reflect the underlying fiction) can shut down some abilities to step others up (or earn plot point, etc). This isn't as dramatic/pressure-generating as (I belive) DitV is - which is consistent with the generally relaxed feel of Cortex+ Heroic, but still does give players a way to make trade offs around resources, stakes etc.

In my 4e game I generally allow for trade offs of various (ad hoc) sorts as part of skill resolution - eg "Yes, you can try that, but if you fail then such-and-such will happen" or "Yes, you can power the ritual out of your very essence - spend a HS for +2", etc. Again, I suspect not as intense as DitV but something a bit like what you're getting at (I think).

I'm also thinking some 7th Seas concept where you get a limited number of successes (raises in their parlance) and use those to both achieve what you want and avoid consequence - so often you need to accept more consequences on yourself in order to complete all of your goals, or alternately only complete one or two but come up without serious consequences/"damage".

I've read Fate once and never played it, so my memory may be confused - does it allow something like this when it comes to filling in the "consequence" boxes?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Example low system interaction: DM has them each make an appropriate skill roll at the end, possibly with different targets. Results are then determined based on that.

Example middle system interaction: Initial rolls are made to discover some opportunities but also failures are advancing tracks (or clocks) to either bring suspicious down on themselves from the king's men, and also advance the possibility that they will scare off the rebels (either by making it too hot or seeming like they might be king's men themselves). Multiple passes occur until enough successes allow contact to be made (only if the "scare off" track isn't full), the PCs are discovered by king's men, or time runs out (end of the ball). Players adjust actions after a pass based on how they feel it is going (not useful, bring too much heat, etc.)

Example high system interaction: a social combat system is used, allowing gains/losses of reputation and webs of trust. Like tactics in a D&D combat, things like unveiling hidden secrets, inspiring speeches, bribes, and other limited use resources are common.

So, if I have this right, you're describing the 3E/5E skill system as low-involvement, the 4E skill challenge system as medium-involvement, and the 3E/4E combat systems as high-involvement.

In that case, I would want systems of interest to have higher involvement than systems of disinterest. That part should be obvious and straight-forward, I would think. I don't want to spend a lot of time doing stuff that isn't interesting, so just abstract that out to a single die roll.

In general, I feel like I should want important things (with dramatic outcomes) to have higher involvement than less-important things (where the outcome doesn't matter), but that's just because complex system skew closer toward the average and humans are naturally risk-averse. As a player, it kind of seems like cheating to suggest that important things are best-eleven-out-of-twenty instead of best-two-out-of-three because I want to win and I'm unlikely to attempt anything if the odds aren't in my favor. It feels more fair to say that importance is not a factor.

As a GM, I would normally hope that important things (with dramatic outcomes) are likely to be interesting enough to warrant modeling with higher-investment mechanics, so I might ratchet up the involvement of important encounters by one step while otherwise basing involvement purely on interest. For example, a battle against some chumps might be done with theater-of-the-mind, while a battle against a boss or dragon would warrant a full grid combat. Talking your way past a guard might be a simple check, while talking your way past the king involves progressively shifting his attitude.