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Tink-Tink-Boom vs. the Death Spiral: The Damage Mechanic in RPGs
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<blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 7756149" data-attributes="member: 20564"><p>Like many, I fiddle with the mechanics of my own RPG system. (Well, more than one, but for here I'm talking about what I label as "My crunchy one" as opposed to "My narrative one".) </p><p></p><p>First, I use a more hybrid mechanic, with a quickly replenishing reservoir that was used both to resist and power your own high end abilities. So it had elements of "Tink".</p><p></p><p>If you didn't use that reservoir (either it's out or your saving it to power your abilities), wounds (physical, emotional, etc.) would have impacts on your characters, though nothing so all encompassing as a straight penalty to everything. Which the article labels as "death spiral" though normally when I use that term it also includes making it harder to resist damage like in Shadowrun, which I was careful not to do.</p><p></p><p>Conditional penalties push people out of their comfort zones if they impact their normal tactics, fostering creativity in a "necessity is the mother of invention" sort of way.</p><p></p><p>However, all PCs (and certain foes muhahaha) also get a free ability call "When the Going Gets Tough...". Basically, when you're down to your last legs you get a large boost to what you can do, enough to be a good boost for the ways you aren't wounded and partially offset where you are. And in this, resisting damage is boosted.</p><p></p><p>This was intended to help GMs boost tension. Before that point there are penalties, no one wants to get hurt as it either wounds you or takes from you points to activate cool powers. And the players feel it as their characters get wounded with penalties, ratcheting up tension. But the final divide between "really hurt" and "down for the count" (or dead) is a lot bigger than it looks like, so a GM can push and still know that a single bad roll won't run though the buffer and kill them off.</p><p></p><p>Though that ability is like an adrenaline high - it'll get you through whatever is happening now, but you're still badly wounded and you need to take that into consideration in your future plans.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Blue, post: 7756149, member: 20564"] Like many, I fiddle with the mechanics of my own RPG system. (Well, more than one, but for here I'm talking about what I label as "My crunchy one" as opposed to "My narrative one".) First, I use a more hybrid mechanic, with a quickly replenishing reservoir that was used both to resist and power your own high end abilities. So it had elements of "Tink". If you didn't use that reservoir (either it's out or your saving it to power your abilities), wounds (physical, emotional, etc.) would have impacts on your characters, though nothing so all encompassing as a straight penalty to everything. Which the article labels as "death spiral" though normally when I use that term it also includes making it harder to resist damage like in Shadowrun, which I was careful not to do. Conditional penalties push people out of their comfort zones if they impact their normal tactics, fostering creativity in a "necessity is the mother of invention" sort of way. However, all PCs (and certain foes muhahaha) also get a free ability call "When the Going Gets Tough...". Basically, when you're down to your last legs you get a large boost to what you can do, enough to be a good boost for the ways you aren't wounded and partially offset where you are. And in this, resisting damage is boosted. This was intended to help GMs boost tension. Before that point there are penalties, no one wants to get hurt as it either wounds you or takes from you points to activate cool powers. And the players feel it as their characters get wounded with penalties, ratcheting up tension. But the final divide between "really hurt" and "down for the count" (or dead) is a lot bigger than it looks like, so a GM can push and still know that a single bad roll won't run though the buffer and kill them off. Though that ability is like an adrenaline high - it'll get you through whatever is happening now, but you're still badly wounded and you need to take that into consideration in your future plans. [/QUOTE]
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