Citizen Shenanigans #1

So. Star Citizen. It may be in Alpha, but it sure is a game. A game where you have a ton of tools and interacting game mechanic systems and ways to make them interact that I don’t think the designers pre-considered what you could do with them. And that makes it amazing. Even when you’re a tired dumbass. Especially when you’re a tired dumbass.

Your character must eat and drink in this game. You must remove your helmet to do so (what, no food nipples?). Nothing. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING reminds you to put your helmet back on.

So I’m making a speculative trade gold run. That is, flying nearly 60 million kilometers across a solar system to a mining colony to fill my ship with gold with a plan to fly 60mKm back to sell it for the best price to the in-game equivalent to Micro$oft. I’ve done it before. It’s the best legal way to make money at the moment for me. For once, this late into the evening, there’s enough to completely fill my cargo hold, and I have the funds to invest in it all. It will be a massive payoff if I can make this run safely.

My character is hungry and thirsty, so before launching from my starting point, I down the equivalent of a protein shake. I then get into my ship, power up, and take off for the mining colony. Ten, twelve minutes later my ship arrives. I hop out of the ship, dash to the hab where I can buy the gold. I don’t notice I don’t have a helmet on and this isn’t a sustainable environment; it won’t kill you instantly, but your life is measured in seconds. I manage to get to the sales hab without noticing this. I fill my ship’s hold with gold (using most of my available funds). Then i decide to explore the other habs for loot. Again, without thinking about my helmet. Without checking my health status. I bound across the landscape and make it to the next hab, only to suddenly expire in the airlock before it can cycle. I am shocked. It’s an ‘Armistice’ zone so nobody can shoot me. Then I realize I’m not wearing a helmet and that i had died from exposure. Dumbass. I sit stunned. I can respawn, but it will be 60mKm away and my ship -full of gold!- is sitting here at the mining camp. I can file an insurance claim and effectively reclaim/respawn my ship where I will respawn, but I don't know what will happen to the gold in the hold.

But I have another ship. A tiny one-seater with no cargo. It’s fast, but has a small fuel tank and I’ll have to refuel halfway to the mining camp. But then I can leave the tiny ship, get back into my cargo hauler, and recover the precious gold. So I do so. I leave my tiny ship at the mining camp (the insurance claim on it is much cheaper and faster than on my hauler), and take my cargo hauler back to the place to sell the cargo.

And when I get to the destination, I crash my ship. In the hangar bay. I’m tired. I’m distracted. I hit ‘boost’ instead of ‘stop’ as I try to land it and slam into the wall of the hanger bay at over 100mps. My ship blows up. Cargo scatters across the bay. Once again I sit there, stupefied again.

But I can respawn immediately and nearby. I do so, run -sprint- to the hangar bay, and start the respawn clock on my cargo hauler (it takes thirteen minutes). When a ship is destroyed, half its cargo is destroyed, the rest spawns around the crash site. Half my gold is still there. In my addled, desperate brain, I come up with a plan: Respawn my ship: If I can, re-land my ship in the same hanger bay and reload the cargo. If I can’t re-land at the same hanger, I can throw the cargo containers outside the hanger, land in the field and recover the cargo. With my hand-held tractor beam I wrangle the cargo containers to the corner of the bay, hoping no other player gets to use this bay before my ship respawns and if they do, they don’t recognize the cargo containers for what they are. Thirteen minutes later, my luck holds: my ship respawns in the same bay I crashed in. Where the gold is. I am able to throw the remaining cargo containers in the back, store the ship, then go sell what I have left on the market. Then I log out for the evening, stupid tired.

All in all, I still lost a ton of money, but not so much as I would have if I had lost all the cargo.

So lessons learned: Don’t fly when tired. 

And don’t forget your helmet.

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.

Review: Homeworld Revelations

 

 Overview

Taking a computer game of fleet management and tactical combat and making a pen-and-paper tabletop game from it was an ambitious task, and the Modiphius team have done a great job of it. Instead of producing a super-complicated, crunchy and hyper-simulationist game, Modiphius gave Homeworld: Revelations a very character and story driven focus that cares more about good drama than strategic fidelity.

A little background

Homeworld, the computer game, came out in 2000 (yes, children, there were video games before the millennium and some of them were damn good) earning numerous awards including E3’s "Best Strategy of the Year", PC Gamer's "Game of the Year" award, IGN's "Game of the Year" award for 1999, and USA Today called it "Top Game of the Year". The original game was followed by Homeworld:Cataclysm the same year, and Homeworld 2 in 2003. Homeworld Remastered was released in 2015, and a prequel game, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, was released in 2016. Homeworld 3 is set to release next year (2024) and this month Homeworld Mobile released for iOS and Android devices.

The Homeworld games are all Real Time Strategy games where the player directed the efforts of a fleet of space (or desert) vehicles in a series of missions in a campaign that combined to tell a grand story. Thoroughly voice-acted and delivering stunning visuals, the Homeworld series combined epic storytelling with tense decision making, limited resources and tactical combat.

For me personally Homeworld has always been one of my favorite games series. The stunning visuals, music and animatic-styled cutscenes were a beautiful relief from overdone cutscenes and awkward FMV acting of the day. The galaxy-sweeping story of a long lost peoples first returning to their ancestral homeworld, then defending it from existential threats, was epic and compelling. The ‘side story’ of Homeworld: Cataclysm was especially moving in the quality of storytelling and voice acting which really sold the drama.

But Homeworld has always been a tactical/strategic story. The playthroughs are the same, and only advance when you succeed in the chain of challenging missions that make up their arcs. Many missions had only one ‘right’ solution and in many ways the story missions served as training for the player in how to best manage and maneuver their fleet. 

But we’re not limited to PC simulation games anymore. Thanks to the Homeworld: Revelation tabletop roleplaying game.

The Core Rules

Homeworld: Revelations (herein to be referred to as “HW:R”) is a 2d20 game, produced by Modiphius. In the last few years, Modiphius has emerged into the industry as a game producer of note. The flexibility of their house 2d20 engine has supported RPGs for such diverse IP’s as Conan the Hyborean, Dishonored, Fallout, Star Trek Adventures, Infinity, and DUNE among others. This year (2022) Modiphius also released a 2d20 System Reference Document, opening the 2d20 system to writers to come up with their own games using this versatile system. They’ve also become publishers of a variety of non-2d20 games such as the Elite Dangerous RPG and Liminal, and wargames like Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms and Five Parsecs From Home, and many others.

I’ve written previously about 2d20, specifically my review of Star Trek Adventures, and HW:R is a pleasantly familiar riff off the ST:A ruleset. It has a wonderful emphasis on character  cooperation and it’s ‘momentum and threat’ mechanics give your sessions a kind of meta narrative power that allows players and GM to influence the action beyond just rolling to hit and rolling damage. HW:R has a more developed character advancement system than ST:A does. 

Character creation

HW:R characters are similar to ST:A characters with six ability scores and six broad ‘skills’, plus Talents and Focuses and ‘Truths’. Character creation is done in phases: choosing or rolling randomly for Background, Environment, Upbringing, Profession and Career events. By the end, you’ll have a character that is broadly competent with added focus on their specialties. The book assumes you’ll be playing a Kushan/Higaaran, but all the ‘races’ in the Homeworld verse are essentially human, so playing a Taiidan, Kadeshi, Turan, or even Bentusi should be easily adaptable. Options exist for in-play main character and supporting character creation. (The supporting character growth from ST:A would supplement the core HW:A rules nicely.) 

One minor complaint I have is the personal equipment of the setting is remarkably pedestrian. For a sci-fi setting, the choices for personal equipment and weapons are limited and not terribly imaginative. HW:R is a more hard sci-fi setting than Star Trek, but even so I expected more energy weapons and advanced tools to use. On the plus side, there are plenty of examples of more interesting equipment and tools from related games, like Infinity, which can be ported over. 

Ship combat and construction

Homeworld: Revelation treats ships like characters, which is great for story-based storytelling. It means a cinematic focus on character and ships are characters rather than focus on a map and pieces on a board. The 2d20 system handles this well. One twist from how ST:A and HW:R treat ships is that while in ST:A ships have ‘departments’ which function like Skills, Homeworld ships don’t. In ST:A, when you perform an action using a ship’s systems and technologies, the ship helps you in your test with its own dice roll using its Systems + Department scores. In contrast: in HW:R you use the ships’ Stat with your own Skill rating. HW:R ships also don’t have shields, like most ST:A ships do: Combat is dangerous and getting disabled or destroyed is easier in HW:R compared to ST:A.

There’s a wealth of ship designs from the original Homeworld computer game, both the player-controllable versions as well as the mission-only specific designs that formed crucial challenges during the campaign.

Ship creation follows two methods: first is “take an existing ship and modify it,” and second is a more detailed methodology starting with a base scale and making choices with a limited pool of points. On the one hand this is far easier than, say, 2300AD’s Aerospace Engineer’s Handbook, and the HW:R book has plenty of examples of the exotic and weird technologies of the Homeworld setting. On the other hand, this system heavily penalizes smaller ships over bigger ones by limiting the points available for customization. In my opinion the GM should just tweak things to fit their story needs and not worry about ‘point balancing’ things. 

Historical and cultural infodump

The HW:R book details the extensive historical background of the Homeworld universe, and gives plenty of hooks for creating your own stories within its many-millennia old universe. One of the concerns I had when anticipating this game was ‘what are my players going to do?’ and this book does a good job of providing ideas for games set in several different timelines: from before the events of the original Homeworld Game, to events hinted at in the forthcoming Homeworld 3 game. There’s also sections describing the major ‘geography’ of the galaxy and notable locations visited in the games. These should be sufficient for inspiration for new additions in your own games. 

The HW:R book contains plenty of material on the main cultures of the Homeworld games: the Kushan, the Hiigarans, the Turani, Taiidani and Bentusi, and it is made clear that there are plenty more cultures that aren’t detailed in the setting. It’s a big galaxy, after all.

There's a long section describing Kiithid society (the hero culture from the computer games), intended to give major insight and inspiration to roleplaying characters in the game. The other major cultures (Taiidan, Turanic, Kadesh, Bentusi and even the progenitors) get a thorough writeup as well.  

Gamemastering and cast of characters

Finally, the “Gamemastering” and “Non-Player Characters” chapters of the core book give advice on using the specific tools for the GM that the 2d20 game engine provides. The NPC chapter gives many examples of allied, neutral and enemy characters for your games. 

Pros and Cons

+ The flexible 2d20 game system. If you’ve played any other 2d20 system, HW:R will be easy to get into, even with ship combat added to the mix. Coming from Star Trek Adventures will be even easier.

+ Loads of lore, setting and background info that expand well upon the Homeworld universe. 

- Initial equipment options are bland and lean, compared to many other Sci-Fi RPGs. Plenty of room to add your own ideas and those from other games, however.

+ Every ship and objective from the original Homeworld game is here with stats and background.

- Ships from Homeworld: Cataclysm, Homeworld 2 and Deserts of Kharak are absent, but can be abstracted or built using the included design framework.

+ Setting details that allow playing in multiple era’s in the Homeworld series. An ambitious GM and group could even run a ‘legacy’ series of stories where they play descendants of characters from previous games.

- I want more but this is just the first book, and maybe Modiphius will open up the RPG IP to fan-made content if they don’t publish more material themselves.

+ One could run a pseudo-wargame with this game. It wouldn’t be Star Fleet Battles, but if that’s what you want go play that. 

Verdict

Homeworld: Revelations has been worth the wait. This is a slick game of character drama set in a universe of epic quests and action, back-dropped by mass spacecraft battles without overly complicated rules. There are plenty of story hooks baked into the historical and background information sections. 

I give Homeworld:Revelations 5 out of 5 stars.

Gaming snob? (Or “Shut up and play”)

I have a problem. I only want to play the ‘perfect’ game engine: one that has the perfect balance of crunchy details when I want it, and offer a totally streamlined experience the rest of the time. One that I can tell anything in. The perfectionist in me seeks a zen-like clarity of the perfect framework.  However, there is no such thing as a one-system to rule them all...

I make the joke that the aging gamer in me is getting tired of learning new game engines, but that’s not really true. I LIKE reading up on new ideas, new frameworks. There are venerable games I feel beholden to because of the nostalgia I feel for them. But when I sit down with those old books I feel the age of the writing; The mechanics holding things back. I’m progressive at heart: keep what works, try what might be better, leave behind what doesn’t work any longer. I’d often try and update or adapt an old setting to a new framework. But that can be tricky… Games are written the way they are to achieve the intended atmosphere and effects. That’s something I have to accept, even embrace. Also: just because there’s a rule for it in a game engine, doesn’t mean I have to use it (as a GM. Players can’t go ignoring the rules the GM sets for them.) That said, there’s always room for improvement.

Within me there are two gamers: the Storyteller and the Simulationist. The Simulationist is the part of me that has been trying to make sense of the world and how it works for as long as I can remember; life makes more sense to me when I have systems that explain things. Models that I can use and apply and evolve with experience: I wanted to know how things were made: I got into Car Wars because you could design vehicles in that game. I loved science fiction, so I got into Traveler for its starships (I own all five official versions and a couple unofficial versions). I fell in love with big robots so I got into BattleTech, Mekton and Silhouette (Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles). Everyone played D&D, but I got into GURPS and the HERO games because they were all about character design. And that’s just the first two decades of my gaming experience.

I started gaming as a Simulationist, and it’s still in my bones. But I have grown more in the second two decades as a gamer, leaning far away from simulationism. Or more accurately: looking for systems who’s mechanics were less interested in simulation fidelity than in emphasizing and supporting good storytelling. Games like Burning Wheel, FATE, Cypher, 7thSea, White Wolf (now known better as Storyteller). Games that shifted the mechanical focus from beat-by-beat dice rolling to determine to-hit, damage, saving throws, etc. and more into narrative influence and more into meeting the intent of the character (and player). Twenty years of chasing simulationist games has taught me that while random dice and table rolls can inject drama and make interesting stories, most of the time dice just hate me. Most simulationist games aren’t focused on fun, but that’s another diatribe. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t trust dice mechanics when it comes to making fun gaming experiences. 

The Storyteller loves good exposition, strong characters, immersive settings, drama. The best games I remember actually playing sometimes never had dice thrown or character sheets or rules referenced. Shadowrun by candlelight when the power was out due to a major storm. Pure character interactions during back-at-camp scenes when not exploring dungeons in tactical mode. Meta gaming discussions outside game time with the GM and other players, expounding upon the world and setting up scenes to come. The Storyteller appreciates detailed mechanics when it suited the storytelling, but not when they get in the way. Mechanics inform the story, not drive it. Leave the detailed simulationist stuff to computer games these days; they’re far better at handling the minutiae.

Yet there are games that go just a bit too far away from my simulationist roots. Powered by the Apocalypse at its core is proving difficult for me to grok. “Wait, I only roll dice when i say the magic trigger words?” I love the dice concept of the Genesys engine and their absolute focus on degrees of success, failure and complication. But in both cases it’s just out of my comfort zone. I need to see them in action more. 

I feel like my time and attention are a limited resource, especially when it comes to gaming. I don’t want to waste time of games that I don’t think will be fun. But this is also holding me back. While I can read how a game is supposed to be played over and over again, it takes actual play experience to see how they actually work.

I need to play more. Try new things. See what works and doesn’t.

SO. To appropriate, or rather, adapt a koan of wisdom for writers: As writers read more than they write, so game designers need to play more than they write game systems. I think I need to start hosting a regular game test day; pick something I haven’t tried at all or very much and see how it works in actual play.

Who’s in for trying new things?

Incentivizing Failure, or “Making failure fun”

Classic Dungeons and Dragons games, and some modern hardcore ones, may end in ‘total party kills’ or ‘wipes.’ Sometimes this is because the characters choose to take on something they really weren’t prepared for or even capable of defeating; sometimes it’s bad planning and sometimes the best possible plan fails because of a couple bad dice rolls.Aside from the gravitas and potential hilarity of these events, not to mention elevating the perceived threat of whatever did the party in, what’s the next step? Start with a new cast of level one characters? There’s a certain appeal to starting over, trying new concepts and tactics. However, I happen to be one of those kinds of players who get rather invested in their characters; their death by arbitrary dice outcomes is an emotional cost that’s anxiety inducing. 

I wonder sometimes if this is how George R. R. Martin ended up writing his infamously character-lethal novels; he couldn’t find anyone willing to roleplay tabletop with him again after arbitrarily murdering off everyone’s characters?

It also depends on the conflict system: D&D rolls dice twice per melee attack or offensive spell casting; one could just miss outright, one could hit but then roll very low for damage; or miss a saving throw against a spell. Characters often have enough hit points to survive several attacks. This all combines to make conflicts decided over several rounds of exchanges so the averages tend to even out: you might have missed this turn, but critically hit next turn, and so on.

Other game systems are more abstract in their conflict handling; In a Powered by the Apocalypse game, for example, an entire conflict could be resolved in a single roll, and in PBtA, you either completely fail 45% of the time, succeed ‘at cost’ 27% of the time (you win but get hurt), and perfectly succeed the other 27% of the time (before you take into any modifiers). That’s potentially a lot riding on one roll.

Of course, character death is the extreme example of bad dice luck. Negotiations, investigations, crafting and other ‘systems’ that are determined by dice rolls (or card draws or whatever your resolution mechanics are) can fail at dramatic moments and derail stories and even end campaigns abruptly if not handled well.

Some games already take failure into account, mechanically speaking:

Burning Wheel games, for example, track success and failure on every stat and skill roll. When you reach a certain number of ‘tests’ against your current skill or stat rank, it goes up by one instantly and automatically and your progress of tracking tests starts over again. In Mouse Guard, you need failed tests as well as successful ones to advance.

In the Dragon Ball Z rpg, by R. Talsorian games, characters have an overall Power Level (something characters actually talk and brag about in the fiction, and is also a stat in the RPG mechanics). Comparing this stat to your opponent’s determines how much experience points you gain just for encountering them. Win or lose. This incentivizes challenging characters more powerful than yourself to grow stronger. An excellent example of game mechanics modeling story/world themes.

Aside from the mechanical aspects, most modern Game Master’s guides and ‘how to roleplay’ essays address -to a greater or lesser extent- not letting dice rolls derail a good game or story. However I feel this is often unclear, and information provided a little too late. Mechanics that enforce design goals is more direct, and sometimes a more subtle way to guide a game. 

It’s worth also pointing out that succeeding all the time gets boring; the anime One-Punch Man being a wonderful exception; but Saitama’s end solution to his problems is the punchline (pun intended) to the comedy; it’s what leads up to that point that’s the story. Let’s stick a pin in that for later, because it gives me ideas...

So. How do we structure play, mechanics and stories that make failure not only tolerable, but even desirable in some cases?

Failure can be tied to growth, like in Burning Wheel games. BW emphasizes characters challenging themselves (and the failure that comes with that) to get better at things. The point of a Burning Wheel game isn’t always character growth: growth is just the natural outcome of testing one’s abilities. In a game where character death is quite the possibility, however, striving to grow means walking a tight line of challenging your character’s abilities but not going so far as to die from it. 

Some games make character death much harder to achieve; in 7thSea 2nd Edition when your character takes their fourth Dramatic Wound they become ‘helpless’ for the rest of the scene. To kill a helpless character requires a special effort on the part of the villain, one that can be easily interrupted by another character. Also, in the genre of 7thSea, proper Villains are often too busy in their schemes to bother with the effort to kill a hero (unless that hero has time and again foiled the Villains plans and royally pissed them off). The fiction of the genre influencing how the game mechanics work, and the mechanics support the genre of the fiction. 

A clever GM can make failure lead down alternative and interesting paths when the characters fail to do something. Can’t pick the locks to the dungeon you’re trapped in? Introduce a lazy, corruptible or sympathetic guard to the scene and let the players make another different approach. Let there be an earthquake that damages the structural integrity of their prison. Unfortunately this can lead to too many Deus Ex Machina moments, and really make the characters (and players) feel disempowered. 

Now so far we’ve looked into mechanics and characters, but not considered the player in all of this. FUN is had by the players, not necessarily the characters, and defining what’s fun for the players directs us to how to make character failure interesting and entertaining. There’s a strong reliance on the social contract here, with players trusting GM’s to try and make the game entertaining and the GM trusting the players to participate fairly with each other and respect the GM’s role in the game. After all, GM’s are players too, and deserve to have fun at the table as well.

Here’s where having a clear scope of genre and play established between the GM and players is so important. Sure your players characters may have goals, but what are the players definitions and limits on having ‘fun’? What’s fun for one player may be torture for another and knowing that distinction is critical. 

Ask yourself: when the character’s metaphorical (and maybe literal) back is against the wall due to circumstances and bad dice luck, what’s the players ideal way out of the situation? Then go with that. 

Let us introduce some example player archetypes: the role-player, the storyteller, and the tactician. There are plenty more variants and alternatives to these but for the purposes of demonstration let’s start with these three:

The “Roleplayer” is deep into playing their character and will likely get more out of pushing their characters boundaries than clever tactical decisions or min-maxing their character’s design. When a roleplayer’s character fails at their initial attempt at something, they’re probably going to be more happy to roleplay their way out of the situation than any other method. They will make decisions in character and accept the consequences because “they were acting in character”.

The “Storyteller” player is into what’s best for the drama: With character goals and motivations and natures in mind, they’ll pursue what both tells the best story and advances that narrative, rather than rely on dice or mechanisms. 

I’ll give a personal example here. At the climax of a long campaign, my character met their nemesis for a final confrontation. The fate of the kingdom and the fragile treaty holding four cultures together was in the balance.

Now, I have rather terrible dice luck; I prefer to roleplay/storytell, and i didn’t want to trust dice to decide the outcome of this crucial moment. I asked the GM for a sidebar and we talked about how we both wanted the scene to play out. What would satisfy us both. With that in agreement we went back to the table and together told of their epic final duel and how James Covington saved the day and redefined the covenant of Avalon forever after. Not one die was rolled.

Best damn conclusion to a campaign, ever. We still talk about the outcome and the ramifications of how it ended to this day.

The “Tactician” will enjoy gaming the system for the best possible outcome. Their knowledge of the game world, combined with their understanding of the game system will be their way out of the situation. They probably have a greater grasp of the mechanics of the situation than any other player; it’s their preferred playground.

Now these are all generalizations, but they’re useful starting points for conversation between everyone at the table.

This is where we bring Saitama back into the conversation. For those not familiar with the anime/manga One Punch Man, it’s a spoof of the superhero genre where the titular hero can defeat anything with one punch: Underworld demons, city-stomping kaiju, extinction-event sale asteroids, and even rainy days. Each with a single punch. What he can’t do is qualify as an actual superhero, or even hold down a regular job. If One-Punch Man were a role playing game Saitama wouldn’t even have a combat stat or skill: just a trait: “Can defeat anything with one punch.” And it’s his get-out-of-trouble card as well: When all else fails, punch the problem. Perhaps the point is to see how long a situation can go (and how absurd it can become) before Saitama resorts to punching something.

This gives us a framework: For each character define their absolute go-to problem solver. It can be a skill, talent, quirk, whatever. It doesn’t even have to be something intrinsic to the hero and certainly doesn’t have to be something under their direct control: weird and extreme luck; a face and personality that turns the head of even the vilest and most sadistic member of the opposite sex; they will fall head over heals in love or infiltration with the hero (a la Tenchi Muyo and other ‘harem’ anime). Whatever it is, it has to be something the player enjoys. The character may not understand it, or hate when it happens, but in all cases and circumstances, the player must be enthusiastically onboard with it. 

I think this process can either be done proactively (“I can always punch my way out of problems”), or on the fly as game is played, or some combination of the two. The important thing in all cases is the earnest conversation about expectations, goals and comfort levels. Don’t force a player who’s not a great in-character talker to roleplay his character fast-talking out of a situation if the player isn’t into it. Don’t expect the roleplayer to know the best combination of dice and character details necessary to game their way out of a tactical nightmare. 

In descending order of importance it should be: player FUN, fidelity of character and world next, and implementing mechanical systems last. Another way to look at it is this: Mechanics exist to support and formulate the world and character concepts; world and characters exist to support and enable player fun. Different players have different definitions and limits to fun. So not all characters, world and game mechanics will 'work' for all players. Communication of expectations and deciding what mechanics support those expectations is the framework we want to utilize.

What do you think?