Returning to Crunchy design systems

 So i said 'hell with it' and pulled out my Mekton Zeta books and starting stating out mecha and ship designs for a theoretical game, because sometimes you just gotta crunch some numbers.

I pulled some pics from Pinterest that looked interesting and started writing some setting-fluff and then designs inspired by the artwork. [We'll ignore for now the issues of piracy and using others artwork for personal benefit; the short of it is as long as I am not making money and can give the artists credit, i feel fine about this.] This spun into more worldbuilding ideas, and then a major side-quest of creating a sub-design workflow that made things simpler. Mekton is a system that can be as simple as you want, or as complex as you want. It recognizes that most supporting and background mecha don't need as much detail as the 'hero' units, and thus can do with less crunchy detail. 

And then I realized I was going in the wrong direction; over twenty-four 'supporting' mecha designs (mostly capital ships and support craft) to two -two- 'hero' units written up so far. The focus had shifted from a setting with an emphasis on a few Hero units to huge capital ships and fleet composition. The original idea was to have lightly detailed units that support the setting, but now I worry I've gone too far down this rabbit hole. So, do I scrap what I have and start over? Take what I got so far and just change focus? The stuff I have written up so far is good within its own framework, I think. But I'm not sure its what I was originally going for. This is partially because of the variety of inspiring artwork, drawing from vastly different genres and settings. Trying to create a cohesive setting from highly disparate sources means a hodgepodge of elements. If I were planning to commercialize this setting, I'd either redo all the artwork myself, or commission some artists for new art.

This reminds me of the importance of 'setting bibles' and vision statements; writing down the vision and goal then referring to it later to check course and progress. Or, acknowledging that your initial idea needed some modification.

All this crunch, however, leads to the next step: actually playing a crunchy game systems. The point of lower-complexity designs for non-Hero units is to make the GM's life easier. Let the players have full-page sheets of details to track for their lone Hero units; the GM needs to track everyone else in the scene. That's what the side-quest was for: create a streamlined system for designing and using these supporting units; as GM I want to track an NPC unit on a 3x5 card, or half a page at most.

Review: Till the Last Gasp

 Do you love improv acting? Do you like really getting into the motivation and mood of a character to walk and talk as if you were them? Or do you want to get more into improv and acting then your normal gaming gathering normally has going on? Then Till the Last Gasp is worth looking into.

Till The Last Gasp is a tabletop game by Darrington Press that is all about dramatic one-on-one confrontations. With a dozen pre-generated characters and nine battlefield maps that cross many genres and settings there’s loads of replay value with the base game. However you can also create your own characters (but not locations), by answering a set of purely descriptive questions about each character. There are no attributes, levels, skills, feats, talents to worry about. Characters can fight with weapons, rhetoric, superpowers, magic, ultratech, psychic powers, or trained monsters, it all possible. 

As for the mechanics themselves there is a bit of a learning curve. The mechanical layer exists to set the pace and tempo of the conflict. There’s definitely a ‘tactical’ level to this game, as you juggle your stance card versus the allocation of dice to defense and offense. Using the battlefield is key to every Objective card and each of the locations on the maps offer their own opportunities for narrative and tactical play. There’s no rolling-to-hit or rolling for damage here. Each combatant chooses a set of Objectives that are their victory conditions. First player to achieve three objectives then gets the chance to ‘end the duel decisively.’ 

While you could play TtLG purely for the tactical ‘win,’ like you would MtG, you’d be skipping out on the biggest part of playing: The dramatic improv acting and storytelling. Your character’s traits are all narrative and motivational. Your Objectives prompt you to describe or enact your character’s actions, thoughts and feelings, and just as often prompt your opponent to do the same. Locations on the battlefield will do this too, as will Drama cards that are drawn often and throughout the duel to add more narrative flavor. Your character will be affected by these moments and revelations. The game encourages this, which is why the stakes of the conflict will change as the game progresses. A friendly bout to prove who’s the better may turn deadly as egos are triggered and tempers flare; a duel to the death may instead result in a change in someone’s allegiances. Rivals become deadly enemies … or lovers. It's all in how the cards, dice, and player choices turn out during the course of the game.  (As a side note, this reminds me a lot of the concepts behind Thirsty Sword Lesbians and the kind of drama that game seeks to enact.) All this hinges on the player’s abilities to emote their characters. If you leave the table without a sense of having experienced a dramatic encounter that changes the character’s lives forever, you’re doing it wrong.

Till The Last Gasp has all the benefits of what I'll call ‘modern gaming culture.’ There is a heavy emphasis on cooperation, collaboration, respecting boundaries (This is the first game I’ve encountered that ships with an X card). At any time either player can de-escalate the stakes of the conflict, but it takes both players agreeing to raise the stakes. The official last step of the game is to shake hands and leave the table as friends.

The production values for this boxed game are impressive; From the folding player boards, to the ‘battlefield’ maps, dice, cards and tokens, everything is well made and made to last. One can tell that the makers of the game are gamers themselves because of the attention to details present. There are ziplock bags for all the components! The only thing that would make it perfect were if the box it all came in were designed for reuse, like with a hinged lid rather than the classic clamshell pieces design.

One hope I had for this game was the possibility to use it as a kind of ‘mini game’ in concert with other game systems/engines for when the normal rules couldn’t handle such a dramatic confrontation as well as one might like. After reviewing the rules as written and discussion with fellow gamers, I’d say TtLG mostly accomplishes this goal. While it might be tempting to tweak the rules as written to give a combat-focused character some form of edge over a non-combat character, from a purely narrative point of view that’s unnecessary here. Character motivation is more important than ‘skill’ in TtLG, and that should be embraced when playing it. The plucky and determined courtier has just as good a chance as the bitter duelist hired to silence them. The only thing I’d like to see is how to make new battlefields for your duels, but the basics of how they work are straightforward and easy to use or re-use for your custom settings.  

If you’re a skilled improv actor, you’ll get this game play right away. If you want to get better at improv, this is a good game for you. If you want your battles to be meaningful, emotionally impactful to those involved, and memorable for the ebb and flow of drama, this game is for you. If you just want to kick down doors, slay orcs and count gold pieces, this isn’t for you.

So ... Cypher.

So... the Cypher system from Monte Cook. I have a love-hate thing about this game system.

With the explosion of upcoming Cypher games about to drop - the wildly successful Old Gods of Appalachia and Adventures in the Cypher System Kickstarter projects - I figure I better resolve my issues and maybe plan some house rules, because I see great potential in the Cypher system, but I also have some very bitter and jagged issues with the system.

Overall, I immensely appreciate the simplicity and elegance of the level mechanic for monsters and other threats. “It’s a level 4 Orc” tells you what you need to know about hitting it, and avoid being hit by it, and even how many times you need to hit it (if its HP is based on its level, though most monsters detailed in the various Cypher books don’t follow the formula exactly); Anything else the monster can do is a special entry in its writeup, but they’re generally pretty simple to use. (I am using the term ‘monster’ here very broadly: meaning any threat, opponent or entity challenging the PCs) I appreciate that the Players do the majority of rolling in Cypher: roll to succeed, roll to hit, roll to avoid being hit, etc… 

The three Attributes Pools.

Might, Speed and Mind. I appreciate the brevity and archetypes here. Could there be room for additional or alternative approaches? Body, Mind, Soul? HOWEVER: The idea that using your powers makes you weaker and closer to defeat by drawing from the same pools that serve as your ‘hp’ seems counterintuitive. When doing something cool and powerful is equivalent to taking a hit from a monster, one has to do the evaluation if your action is worth it. I have a workaround for this, so see House Rules later for my 'fix' for this issue.

Character Types, a.k.a. Classes

The core character ‘classes’ or Types as they are called in the core book are kinda weak IMHO, especially in their progression. I don't have a quick fix for this. Maybe replacing character Types with a broader application of the Adjective Noun that Verbs structure could work, but I am getting ahead of myself ...

"I am an Adjective Noun who Verbs" rocks

What Cypher has really inspires me with is the phrase “I am an Adjective Noun who Verbs.” In Cypher, you combine a Descriptor (Adjective), a Type (Noun) and a Focus (Verb) to create your character. It’s sorta like the equivalent of your Alignment + Race + Class in D&D. However, Cypher limits your characters to one such combination. Now granted in Cypher these are big defining elements. “I am a Swift Warrior who Dual Wields” embodies everything those words encompass. However it makes for rather one - dimensional characters.

I’m seriously interested in using the ‘Adjective Noun that Verbs’ structure as a Skill-based system instead:

• Let the Adjective be the level of experience/training (Novice, Expert, Master, etc…).
• The Noun is the skill, career or job title.
• And the Verbs is a specialization within that broader Noun.

(For simplicity I’ll refer to ‘Adjective Noun who Verbs’ as ‘ANV’ from here on.)

So for example you could have a Novice Marksman who Snipes, but alternatively be Expert Marksman who Dual Wields. You don’t have to have a Specialization. The trick here is that the Noun has to be simultaneously broad enough to encompass a clear set of actions /activities/ knowledge, but also narrow enough not to be abused as a catch-all for everything the character attempts to do.

The Adjective/level of experience would be the effective 'level' in that skill. In core Cypher rules: 'Novice' would give you a baseline chance to succeed. 'Trained' would give you a one step difficulty in your favor, and 'Specialized' would give you two difficulty steps in your favor. In other game systems your Adj level could determine how many dice to roll, etc ...

The Specialization would give a boon to actions in specific circumstances. These could be detailed written up abilities, or a free difficulty boon, or grant types of actions that wouldn't be possible without the Specialization.

E.g. You gotta be a Brilliant Doctor who's a Brain Surgeon to try to replace Spock's brain.

You could also use the ANV for things like social traits, reputations, titles, etc., where the Adj is the level/rank/notoriety, the Noun is the title, rank or position, and the Verb instead details the organization. A Junior Knight of the Order of the Rose, A Special Agent of the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, a Notorious Enforcer of the Mendez Cartel.

A character would realistically be a collection of these ANV combinations, advancing in skill level and gaining specializations as they grow from experience, as well as gaining new ANV traits.