Let's Talk About Core Game Mechanics

[zakael19]

I'm noodling on a system to let actions have synergy, and to give players just enough actions they can take on or off their turn (similar to Draw Steel but maybe scaled back to 3?) to keep them engaged throughout the combat.

Hey, same hat. I think that tying a lot of things to Hope / Stress puts some bounds on Reaction type stuff.

Fatigued, Sickened, Frightened, and something like "Shaken" or "Rattled" feels like a good start.

Vuln does a good job standing in for a wide variety of "you're easy to hurt," I think there's a couple of adversaries that inflict similar conditions to Frightened? Something that's "is harder for you to attack" isn't bad.

Toying around with expanding Taunted / Goaded / Marked (well not that since the word has other uses in DH but the classic 4eism), Weakened (half damage), Dazed (mark a stress before making action rolls? or, do 1 thing on your spotlight / no reactions), Slowed (move Very Close without making a roll).

I think never fully disabling is a good design ethos generally, so messing with the edge of that.

4 damage types up from 2? I think that just Magic is a little simplistic but neither do I want a proliferation; testing out an adversary feature of Armored / Warded (X) as a countdown during which the adversary can only mark Minor damage. So you always chip away, but it avoids "oops they alpha'd for Severe 3x" without doing the math of Resistance much! Plus now you can have weapons that Pierce or abilities that burn Wards...

Anyway, I'm having fun for now.

 

[500 Toads]

I think the important question to ask is whether the granularity is worth it, as "d20 roll under" is exactly the same system as percentile roll under, just in 5% increments. This was an observation I made while playing Green Ronin's version of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which was "percentile roll under" - but operated entirely in 5% increments.

At a baseline, they're equivalent; but of course, there are systems (e.g. Eclipse Phase, at least in 2E; Mythras Imperative as well) that add quirks such as allowing one to spend a resource to swap the order of the digits. I haven't bothered looking to see if there's any simple, essentially equal-impact approach for a d20 system to match that, but shrug.

 

[JohnSnow]

Hey, same hat. I think that tying a lot of things to Hope / Stress puts some bounds on Reaction type stuff.

The nice part about off-turn actions (whether reactions or just a more flexible action economy) is that they keep people engaged throughout the combat narrative and encourage players to collaborate. Those are both good things, so some mechanism for making that the default makes sense to me.

Vuln does a good job standing in for a wide variety of "you're easy to hurt," I think there's a couple of adversaries that inflict similar conditions to Frightened? Something that's "is harder for you to attack" isn't bad.

Toying around with expanding Taunted / Goaded / Marked (well not that since the word has other uses in DH but the classic 4eism), Weakened (half damage), Dazed (mark a stress before making action rolls? or, do 1 thing on your spotlight / no reactions), Slowed (move Very Close without making a roll).

I forgot about Daggerheart's use of "Vulnerable." You're right that that's a great idea that potentially handles a LOT of situations. I like Dazed and Slowed, and I think Taunted or some variant of it makes sense. Dragonbane uses Exhausted, Sickly, Dazed, Angry, Scared, and Disheartened, and ties each to an attribute (in order their equivalents of Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis, and Cha). "Wounded" is a separate thing that comes from losing Hit Points.

I think never fully disabling is a good design ethos generally, so messing with the edge of that.

I kinda like the idea of PCs never being fully disabled. Something like letting an incapacitated PC take free and minor actions only, letting the PC fish a healing potion from their backpack one round, and drink it the next. If they do more than that, they have to, say, pass a CON save or pass out. Or they could take more substantial actions and risk being permanently killed (think Boromir in The Fellowship of the Ring).

4 damage types up from 2? I think that just Magic is a little simplistic but neither do I want a proliferation; testing out an adversary feature of Armored / Warded (X) as a countdown during which the adversary can only mark Minor damage. So you always chip away, but it avoids "oops they alpha'd for Severe 3x" without doing the math of Resistance much! Plus now you can have weapons that Pierce or abilities that burn Wards...

Anyway, I'm having fun for now.

I'm in favor of force, fire, and cold as magical damage types, and piercing, bludgeoning and slashing as physical ones. But that's me. Although I'll note that most swords can be used to inflict piercing or slashing damage, and even bludgeoning as a fallback. People tend to forget that, which, as an aside, is why I hate mastery properties, but that's a separate rant.

And I also just realized I'm way off the topic of core mechanics. But the conversation has my creative juices flowing.

 

[zakael19]

Dragonbane uses Exhausted, Sickly, Dazed, Angry, Scared, and Disheartened, and ties each to an attribute (in order their equivalents of Str, Con, Dex, Int, Wis, and Cha). "Wounded" is a separate thing that comes from losing Hit Points.

Ohhhh yeah I do like conditions that impose like disadvantage directly to attributes.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Do you interrogate every mechanic of every game you play? How do you find out whether it was a "pet mechanic" or one they really thought did the thing, but failed?

Depends what you mean by "interrogate". Do I evaluate them in context of other mechanics and what benefit they seem to supply? Yes, yes I do. I've been a mechanic hack for 40+ years now and sometimes pretty picky, so looking at mechanics in detail is something I do.

As to you second question, it doesn't much matter; if the mechanic choice was picked because of tics on the part of the designer, or was thought through and failed, either way its a bad mechanic. The reason for it doesn't overly matter except to the degree of possibly saving me the trouble of investigating further designs by that designer.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's always amused me that so many people talk about percentile-based systems as if they're somehow non-linear, or different from a d20 resolution, which they absolutely are not, except in terms of their granularity.

This is not to say "d20 resolution as it's applied in 3e-5e D&D," just the concept in general. A 50% skill check is just "Roll 11 or higher" (or 10 or less) on a d20. The only thing you can't model is granular levels of under 5%, or skill values greater than 95% or less than 5 percent.

I always say the only real difference is you can more easily bake in special/critical results in the D100.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Let me posit a question: all other things being equal, what is wrong with, say, percentile roll under skills while using a d20 Price is Right for combat?

"Wrong" is doing heavy lifting there. I wouldn't say its so much "wrong" is its difficult to see any benefit it provides to make up for the extra overhead on it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

At a baseline, they're equivalent; but of course, there are systems (e.g. Eclipse Phase, at least in 2E; Mythras Imperative as well) that add quirks such as allowing one to spend a resource to swap the order of the digits. I haven't bothered looking to see if there's any simple, essentially equal-impact approach for a d20 system to match that, but shrug.

Well, that's partly assuming some kind of metacurrency is present too, though. By itself they don't let you do that.

 

[aramis erak]

No thanks. As the GM, I am still playing -- especially when the minis come out.

я, тоже!
(Me, also!)
The thing is, rolling the dice isn't part of all games.

As long as action/task resolution has some random, and I as the GM have some input, and there's a difficulty system, I'm good.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

For me it's more about what I dislike than what I like - although there are some types of mechanics that I do like.

I dislike automatic successes and failures, and I really dislike critical successes and critical failures. And I absolutely detest when critical success or failure produce extreme, off-the-charts results because of "They're cool!"

On the other hand, I do like "called shots" - taking a penalty to get an exceptionally good result on a success. It allows a character who is Just That Damn Good to be Just That Damn Good.

I'm wary of mechanics where the rolls are too swingy in general, so I have a soft spot for 3d6 over 1d20. Although I'll accept 1d20 when the swinginess is tamed by a "Take 10" sort of mechanic for routine tasks.

I dislike "The GM must roll in secret for the PC" rules. That a prime target for elimination in my house rules/homebrew. And that's where, IMHO, the "roll and add bonus, and see if you beat a (possibly secret) target number" sort of system shines.