How do you fee about the inclusion of these sort of resources in TTRPGs? Are there alternatives that you prefer (time based cooldowns, for example)? Or do you prefer systems that don't include them at all (if you can do it, you can do it -- many modern supers games work this way)? Is there a middle ground or "why not both?" system you prefer?
What RPGs do these kinds of resources well, and which ones do it poorly? What RPGs manage to let PCs have cool powers without forcing players to count beans?
As usual, thank you for your participation and insights.
This is funny I was just yesterday thinking about making a thread (a bit different though) about ressources in RPG, I think this is an interesting topic!
(Almost) Everything is a Ressource!
So in general I think "ressources" is a bit broader as you mention it here, because coming from Trading Card Games and Boardgames, one can see everything which is limited as ressources.
What I mean with this is that something like a cooldown is also a kind of ressource, (which one can of course prefer!). Similar limitations like "you can only concentrate on one spell" as well as "you can only choose 5 spells to know" are also a ressource.
I think overall a lot of different ressources can work well, and can potentiall create uniquely different classes because of it. There are just some limitations with ressources:
Daily Ressources and its problems
Daily Ressources in all is forms (spell slots, once per short rest, etc.), and having different distributions over different classes, often represent a problem in RPGs, because they can lead to imbalance. If 1 class has a lot of daily ressources, and another class has none, it will depend a lot of the number of encounters. We can see this in many games, most popular 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, where caster are in general considered to be far above martial characters, because the number of fights one need to have daily to make this not the case is too high.
Of course if the ressources are not per day, but per week, or per month, or per "arc" it is exactly the same.
2 Solutions to Daily ressource problems (and maybe more?)
I see for this problem only really 2 solutions, or rather I have seen only 2 solutions which work in Games:
- The Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition way: Everyone has the same power Daily Ressources.
- You can still potentially varry here (like 1 class having 4 daily abilities, another class 8 daily super duper points, and in average 2 super duper points are as good as a daily etc.)
- The nice thing about this solution is that you can have short and long adventuring days mixed, as the GM/adventure wants, without unbalance!
- The 13th Age way: You finish EXACTLY after 4 encounters an arc, and can only restore "daily" ressources when an arc finishes.
- The big advantage here is that you can have vastly different ressource systems all balanced among each other!
- The disadvantage is that you always need to run arcs until ressources run more or less out. So its always attrition, no real mixup.
If there is another solution for this problem, I would love to hear it! Ideally you could have any number of different ressources, and still have the possibility of short and long "adventure days!"
There is a partial solution, you can limit the number of daily ressources you can spend per combat. Like only 1 daily ability per combat. This works out fine IF the number of ressources is comparable high to the number of combats. So when you have 4 dailies and 4 fights, this works out great, but if you have only 1 daily and up to 4 fights, you still run into the problem of characters being different strong depending on adventure day, but this solution does cap things a bit, and rather makes characters without ressources potentially stronger, which normally is the other way around.
The small problematic brother: Non-automatic Short Rests
Well D&D 5E managed to not only reintroduce the problem with long rest ressources, they also created a new problem, the problem of short rest ressources.
This problem exists, because short rests in 5E are not automatic after each combat. This means that similar to the number of fights per long rest above, also the number of fights per short rest can be vastly different. And this also makes it overall more complicated, because now there are 2 things to handle, and you are even more GM dependant. Also when not everyone has short rest ressources (daily ressources (HP at least) has everyone), this also means that a group might only have 1 character who needs short rests, the rest of the party might ignore that...
Overall its the same problem as the Daily ones, its just more complex because we now have 2 different kinds of limited time ressources.
Of course the solution for this problem is simple: Make a short rest after every combat, aka make it "per encounter ressources".
I like many ressource systems, but having 2 different forms of "timely limited" ressources, just adds complexity, potential for imbalance, and more tracking needs, without adding anything significantly to a game.
Ressources I like:
Well pretty much everything else, except things which need a lot of tracking, but some I think are especially genius:
- Once per Day abilities (non repeatable):
- Having encounter altering abilities, which can only be used once per day, are a great way to make from a player side (not GM/adventure site) different encounters feel different. If you have 4 different behaving summons, and 4 encounters per day and can only have 1 summon, then each encounter feels different / has a different form of mini puzzle added.
- However, Oncer per Day abilities are only interesting if they do change the encounter/change your behaviour. So an encounter long buff, or a summon, or altering the terrain, or completly break the enemy formation etc. (or even a "save function" like if cast at the beginning of combat, you can reset the combat once (or fully heal yourself) because this allows for risky (different) play). If it is just big damage, then its not really worth to be a daily, since it fails at the purpose of making combats more distinct.
- If several classes have different dailies, then different combinations will come up, which can make combats even more varied.
- Also unique dailies are a good opportunity to have highly situational abilities. If they are not used its not too bad but if used it can really be a highlight moment for the character.
- Also this is really easy to track on a real physical table, by just using cards. Just put the card away/turn it over if its not available.
- Once per Encounter abilities (non repeatable)
- Again here is important that an ability can only be used once per combat. This way the combat is not as repetitive, and you want to find/create the best opportunities to use them. So having 3 different encounter abilities is great, having 3 power points and you can use the same "encounter" ability 3 times with a power point is not so great, because it is the same repetition as at will abilities can cause.
- Here something cool one can do is having a single ability grant a choice of 2 things (like gloomhaven), this allows for more situational powers (one choice) without feeling bad.
- Also great at physical table play because of simple tracking as cards.
- Cooldowns. (And no "once per encounter" abilities are not cooldowns, because cooldowns want to be used as early as possible in order to be used again, while once per encounter powers want to be used in the right moment.)
- This of course needs a bit longer combats to be effective. It also can help to not have too much repetition, similar to encounter abilities, while still being able to use a perfect ability more than once.
- I think the best implementation of this I saw in an RPG is the Truenamer of D&D 3.5 which has spells which can only be used when the duration is used up. This brings even a tradeoff between enhancing duration of a spell, because it might lock you out longer.
- Decreasing Power of Ability.
- Since we are already talking about truenamer. I really like the ability of having a limited number of (multi purpose) spells, and the spells can be used as often as possible, but get weaker each time it is used (in case of truenamer chance for success decreases by 10%).
- I think this works best if spells have other limitations (cooldowns) and are multi purpose (at least 2 uses), this way one can have a smaller number of spells, while still having the cool ressource.
- The only problem with this is that its generally annoying to track.
- Healing Surges: Limited (automatic) Healing.
- I think this is great, because it means you dont necessarily need a healer, because you can heal yourself, and it also means that adventure day length can be better controlled.
- It also allows cool secondary uses, like the martial practices (or the brilliant 5.5 inspired tactical mind of the fighter), and rituals, and fails for skill challenges etc. Which makes it also useable for non combat and also link attrition together in a natural feeling way.
- Random available abilities (input randomness)
- I think here the book of 9 swords from D&D 3.5 is the best example. One class had a limited number of maneuvers, but they did not have all available at once, but a subselection of them at random.
- This is a nice way to mix combat up a bit, you have to react to what you have and act tactically and not just use the same strategy over and over.
- It is also is using randomness in a balanced and not bad feeling way (input randomness not output randomnes). Normally when games use random ressources, you can just get screwed by having les ressources because you roll badly, here the randomness it not the final result it depends on what you do with it.
