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What if 5e had 2 types of roles
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<blockquote data-quote="KidSnide" data-source="post: 5702022" data-attributes="member: 54710"><p>This is an interesting thought, but I don't understand how this translates into mechanics. What sort of abilities would an Instigator have? How does this relate to skills?</p><p></p><p>Stepping back a bit, I'm starting to wonder if we're approaching this from the wrong angle. Theoretically speaking, non-combat covers an infinite range of possible encounters, but -- practically speaking -- I wonder if fantasy RPGs encounters fit into a much smaller number of categories. I posit this because, if there are a comparatively small (i.e. less than 10) number of encounter types, that might provide more useful information about roles. After all, combat roles don't come from class abilities -- they come from the different ways characters can interact with combat.</p><p></p><p>Here's my list of encounter/challenge types:</p><p></p><p>* Infiltration - entering some kind of secured area with a combination of stealth and guile; bread and butter for Spycraft and Shadowrun style games</p><p></p><p>* Persuasion - convincing an NPC to do something, often with some combination of rules and role-playing</p><p></p><p>* Exploration - traveling through an area (typically a dungeon or wilderness), usually to either clear the area of danger or to find a lost item (or maybe just adventure)</p><p></p><p>* Travel - traveling through an area specifically to get to another area; adventures with travel include D1, the early WoBS games and, perhaps more memorably, LotR. Travel adventures tend to include many encounter types including some obstacles (often wilderness obstacles) of a "get from point A to point B" nature. The skills specific to travel may not be significantly different than the skills specific to exploration.</p><p></p><p>* Chase - trying to get away or prevent the enemy from getting away is its own type of encounter. I tends to think that chase mechanics (to the extent they require separate mechanics) work best if its easy to fit a chase into a game dynamically, rather than games that are written so "a chase happens here."</p><p></p><p>* Information - unless you play out a lot of discussions with NPCs, information gathering is often more of a check "do you know X" or "can you learn Y". Information can become more of an encounter (or - to be more accurate - gameplay), when there is a mystery for the players to figure out or maybe just a strategy to work through.</p><p></p><p>* Riddles and other Puzzles - this is a special kind of encounter where the players try to work through some puzzle (hopefully not too abstracted from the gameworld). In my experience, this type of encounter is usually one where the puzzle solvers work for a while and everyone else waits. </p><p></p><p>* Free-form Creative - Most modern skill challenges are lumped (incorrectly, IMO) into this category. However, I still think there is a place for one-off encounters where everyone thinks creatively about how to apply their skills. Good examples might be "prevent the village from burning", "help the townspeople across the ravine", "set up obstacles to slow down the advancing horde" or anything else where the PCs might take a wide variety of actions and their particular choices aren't especially important (so long as they are reasonably plausible). I tend to think of these as "montage skill challenges."</p><p></p><p>* Mass Combat - a small subset of games play out large battles. This is "non-combat" in the sense that it doesn't work with the regular combat rules. Skill challenge theory might classify this as a non-combat encounter, but I'm inclined to say that it usually deserves its own special system.</p><p></p><p>* Economics - the second special case, an even smaller subset of games include some sort of kingdom management subgame that the players participate in.</p><p></p><p>-KS</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="KidSnide, post: 5702022, member: 54710"] This is an interesting thought, but I don't understand how this translates into mechanics. What sort of abilities would an Instigator have? How does this relate to skills? Stepping back a bit, I'm starting to wonder if we're approaching this from the wrong angle. Theoretically speaking, non-combat covers an infinite range of possible encounters, but -- practically speaking -- I wonder if fantasy RPGs encounters fit into a much smaller number of categories. I posit this because, if there are a comparatively small (i.e. less than 10) number of encounter types, that might provide more useful information about roles. After all, combat roles don't come from class abilities -- they come from the different ways characters can interact with combat. Here's my list of encounter/challenge types: * Infiltration - entering some kind of secured area with a combination of stealth and guile; bread and butter for Spycraft and Shadowrun style games * Persuasion - convincing an NPC to do something, often with some combination of rules and role-playing * Exploration - traveling through an area (typically a dungeon or wilderness), usually to either clear the area of danger or to find a lost item (or maybe just adventure) * Travel - traveling through an area specifically to get to another area; adventures with travel include D1, the early WoBS games and, perhaps more memorably, LotR. Travel adventures tend to include many encounter types including some obstacles (often wilderness obstacles) of a "get from point A to point B" nature. The skills specific to travel may not be significantly different than the skills specific to exploration. * Chase - trying to get away or prevent the enemy from getting away is its own type of encounter. I tends to think that chase mechanics (to the extent they require separate mechanics) work best if its easy to fit a chase into a game dynamically, rather than games that are written so "a chase happens here." * Information - unless you play out a lot of discussions with NPCs, information gathering is often more of a check "do you know X" or "can you learn Y". Information can become more of an encounter (or - to be more accurate - gameplay), when there is a mystery for the players to figure out or maybe just a strategy to work through. * Riddles and other Puzzles - this is a special kind of encounter where the players try to work through some puzzle (hopefully not too abstracted from the gameworld). In my experience, this type of encounter is usually one where the puzzle solvers work for a while and everyone else waits. * Free-form Creative - Most modern skill challenges are lumped (incorrectly, IMO) into this category. However, I still think there is a place for one-off encounters where everyone thinks creatively about how to apply their skills. Good examples might be "prevent the village from burning", "help the townspeople across the ravine", "set up obstacles to slow down the advancing horde" or anything else where the PCs might take a wide variety of actions and their particular choices aren't especially important (so long as they are reasonably plausible). I tend to think of these as "montage skill challenges." * Mass Combat - a small subset of games play out large battles. This is "non-combat" in the sense that it doesn't work with the regular combat rules. Skill challenge theory might classify this as a non-combat encounter, but I'm inclined to say that it usually deserves its own special system. * Economics - the second special case, an even smaller subset of games include some sort of kingdom management subgame that the players participate in. -KS [/QUOTE]
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