What Rules/Systems Would You Steal For EVERY Game?

[BenjaminPey]

Triggers, or, to expand a bit, precise cues to look for in the fiction that will tell you when and how to roll dice.

GM's moves, too.

Adv/Dis is a great mechanic, but loooot of games wouldn't have any use for it (all the games where modifiers are useless, for once).

Clocks are too vague a "rule", I think, but some kind of built-in brakes on the GM-side is always a nice addition, something to prevent a scene or front to be gone in one single act or roll.

 

[zarionofarabel]

So is it just table etiquette that keeps players from overusing the mechanic? or does the GM have to allow it? What is the controlling factor?

Why does there need to be a controlling factor? I mean, generally speaking GMs are allowed to add to the lore of a setting whenever, however, and whatever they want, and players are expected to trust the GM to do so. Why does the players ability to add lore to the setting need to be more restricted than the GMs?

That being said, wises are usually fairly restricted, so a player can only add lore in specific ways, mainly dependant on the field of knowledge the wise pertains to. So a player who has a PC with Stormlands-wise can add all kinds of lore about the Stormlands, but once the party travels to the Sunless Desert they are out of luck.

All in all though it's mainly a trust thing, which is how a great many things in TTRPGs function. Players trust the GM to not just kill PCs willy nilly, to not retroactively manipulate things so the villain wins, or to invalidate their agency. The GM trusts players to properly track PC resources, abilities, and skills. IMHO trust is the single most important aspect of TTRPG play, without it you end up in a "TTRPG Horror Story" environment. 

 

[Reynard]

Why does there need to be a controlling factor? I mean, generally speaking GMs are allowed to add to the lore of a setting whenever, however, and whatever they want, and players are expected to trust the GM to do so. Why does the players ability to add lore to the setting need to be more restricted than the GMs?

Because players and GMs have different roles. Is this controversial?

That being said, wises are usually fairly restricted, so a player can only add lore in specific ways, mainly dependant on the field of knowledge the wise pertains to. So a player who has a PC with Stormlands-wise can add all kinds of lore about the Stormlands, but once the party travels to the Sunless Desert they are out of luck.

What does the game say about the idea that the player might invent something about the Stormlands that contradicts something the GM has developed and might be key to the scenario, but the players don't know exists.

All in all though it's mainly a trust thing, which is how a great many things in TTRPGs function. Players trust the GM to not just kill PCs willy nilly, to not retroactively manipulate things so the villain wins, or to invalidate their agency. The GM trusts players to properly track PC resources, abilities, and skills. IMHO trust is the single most important aspect of TTRPG play, without it you end up in a "TTRPG Horror Story" environment. 

I wasn't talking about abuse. I was talking about coherence.

 

[Tonguez]

Because players and GMs have different roles. Is this controversial?

Surprisingly for many, the 'old school' idea that the GM controls the world and the PCs just control their character is controversial.

Many modern games on the narrative end of the spectrum view both GM and PCs as Players in a shared narrative where everyone is contributing bits to a dynamic story. The what and how of their contribution is thus a broad spectrum, using Action points or Lore rolls or Flashbacks are methods within the ongoing dialogue

What does the game say about the idea that the player might invent something about the Stormlands that contradicts something the GM has developed and might be key to the scenario, but the players don't know exists.

Thats where some of the challenge of narrative games sit - the whole "Play to Find Out what happens" principle (as articulated by PbtA) is that the GM doesnt develop 'key somethings', instead they set up dynamic scenarios then let dice an PC interactions develop into outcomes. If PCs introduce something unexpected thats fun for the GM as they respond to it.

The constraint is the shared narrative and genre agreement between GM and Players, not a mechanical limit.

 

[Reynard]

Surprisingly for many, the 'old school' idea that the GM controls the world and the PCs just control their character is controversial.

Many modern games on the narrative end of the spectrum view both GM and PCs as Players in a shared narrative where everyone is contributing bits to a dynamic story. The what and how of their contribution is thus a broad spectrum, using Action points or Lore rolls or Flashbacks are methods within the ongoing dialogue


Thats where some of the challenge of narrative games sit - the whole "Play to Find Out what happens" principle (as articulated by PbtA) is that the GM doesnt develop 'key somethings', instead they set up dynamic scenarios then let dice an PC interactions develop into outcomes. If PCs introduce something unexpected thats fun for the GM as they respond to it.

The constraint is the shared narrative and genre agreement between GM and Players, not a mechanical limit.

There is still the potential for conflict there, even if the GM designs loosely. Unless the agreement is that the world is a blank slate, and/or that the GM tells the players everything ahead of time, shared narrative control is inevitably going to lead to contradicitions. And that way leads to the "Writers' Room" -- which I do not think makes for good gaming.

it isn't that I am the sort of GM that highly details the world or doesn't like player input. I loosely define most things -- but even then, there are things that must be true for the scenario to exist. And the scenario must exist in some form for there to be a game.

Of course, in games where there aren't defined GM and player roles, that is not an issue so much, but I did not get the impression that is the sort of game we were talking about.

 

[Blue]

Skill challenges/ clocks

Was coming here to say skill challenges, and then when you added clocks I just had to bow my head in agreement.

 

[Laurefindel]

Adv/Dis is a great mechanic, but loooot of games wouldn't have any use for it (all the games where modifiers are useless, for once).

Advantage/Disadvantage is a specific case of the roll&keep concept.

In some games you roll many dice and keep them all (adding them up or counting successes)

In some games you roll many dice but only keep a number of them (typically adding them up, but the higher pool allows poor results to be discarded in favour of higher ones)

In other games you roll many dice and only get to keep one (typically the best result).

And in some games you only get to roll one die, and therefore only keep the one.

Adding and removing dice from a pool is nothing new or revolutionary; the “revolution” of advantage/disadvantage was to treat a single die throw like a dice pool of one, thus allowing us to increase the dice pool to keep the best (or worse) result. So while advantage/disadvantage as 5e defines it is non-applicable in a majority of games that are not d20, the concept of increasing/decreasing the dice pool (or whatever acts as a randomizer) already exists or could easily be implemented in most, if not all games.

I do wonder about dice-less games such as Amber though…

[edit] and in spirit of the OP, I agree with adv/dis (and other forms of “too more dice, keep best/worse) being one of the rules I tend to import in other games as well (but probably not EVERY other system).

 

[Thierry-Advent]

Fantasy AGE's Advanced Skill Checks for long actions. The GM sets a Threshold to reach, say 10 because hacking the program is a moderate task. Then the GM sets the time increment, say 5-minutes per attempt.

Every time the player succeeds (on 3d6 in the case of FAGE) the stunt die tells you how many points you've progressed towards 10. When you reach 10 the action succeeds. For each attempt (success or fail) time progress and chances of getting caught by a security guard increases.

I've done this for social interactions too, as it models the ebb and flow of a discussion better.

With a d20 just have the player roll a d6 on the side to know how many progression points he gets for each success.

 

[Laurefindel]

Fantasy AGE's Advanced Skill Checks for long actions. The GM sets a Threshold to reach, say 10 because hacking the program is a moderate task. Then the GM sets the time increment, say 5-minutes per attempt.

Every time the player succeeds (on 3d6 in the case of FAGE) the stunt die tells you how many points you've progressed towards 10. When you reach 10 the action succeeds. For each attempt (success or fail) time progress and chances of getting caught by a security guard increases.

I've done this for social interactions too, as it models the ebb and flow of a discussion better.

With a d20 just have the player roll a d6 on the side to know how many progression points he gets for each success.

So it’s like a dynamic clock system. I like it!

[edit] … or it’s a hp system for tasks. “Hit” the task with a success, deal “damage”, reduce its “hit points”, task is completed at 0. Either way, I might steal this for d&d.

 

[Thierry-Advent]

So it’s like a dynamic clock system. I like it!

Yes, it was originally introduced in Modern AGE but they added it to FAGE 2e because the players really liked it.