Table-Top RPG Design 02: Basic Mechanics

In this post I'm going to develop a rough-shod mechanic for Mercs (working title).

At the heart of the RPG, and really any game, is the Engine. It's the equivalent of the programming language or chord progression for the game, in that it not only determines what is allowed, but how the players can accomplish it. It's the thematic backbone for how the game feels when you play it, and the mechanic easily makes or breaks the game.

Generally an RPG system consists of some sort of quantified character ability, represented by attributes, stats, skills, or something similar. The classic stat array is the D&D Six: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, where every 2 points above a 10 gives you +1 on your d20 roll. I'm not making a D&D clone, so I'm not going to use those.

In recent years with the boom in self-published/indie RPGs there's been a huge variety of systems created, which run from a classic Skill+Stat combination, to drawing cards from a deck, to betting dice like you're playing poker.

Here's some examples of some systems and how they help deliver their respective tone:

Savage Worlds: In Savage Worlds each Skill is rated as a die, from a d4 to the d12. A player succeeds when they roll a 4 or higher, with additional successes (called Raises) on every 4 above that (8, 12, etc). In addition, the player rolls a Wild Die, which is always a d6 and allows each player the same chance of succeeding on a skill, no matter their actual skill rating. Because Savage Worlds is all about playing big, flashy, pulp-adventure-style heroes, this lets even the less-capable characters get their shining moment and delivers fairly consistent action-moments.

Apocalypse World: Apocalypse World has an unusual system where every action is accomplished by performing a Move, each of which is tied to a certain stat. The player rolls 2d6 and adds the relevant Stat to their roll, and depending on the result there's a different effect (failure is 6 or under, partial success is 7-9, and 10+ is a full success). This accomplishes several things: it means the GM never has to roll dice, as the players make all the decisions, which helps emphasize the book's assertion that the PCs are unique in their agency. It also lets the story advance during failures, which is a problem with several other systems where a failure means that player/story momentum falters for a moment.

Eclipse Phase: Eclipse Phase uses a fairly standard d% system, where you roll a d100 or, more commonly, 2d10 and read the result as a percentage, and rolling underneath your Stat is a success. Whenever I describe it to someone I call it a Price-is-Right system, because the higher you roll, the better you do...as long as you don't go over your Stat. In a setting where PC competence is assumed, but lethality is still a major theme, it makes you feel like you're always pulling by by the skin of your teeth, even when you get a particularly good roll.

Dogs in the Vineyard: In a game where you play Mormon-Jedi in an Alternate-History Wild West, you have pools of Stats (Heart, Acuity, Will, and Body), Relationship dice, and Item dice. You build a dice pool depending on the conflict, roll them, and put them forward in an effort to out-perform your opponent. It rewards tactical dice use and turns conflict into a back-and-forth game where the chance for escalation can produce real consequences. Bringing a gun into the conflict, for example, can increase your chances of winning an argument, but the potential for grave injury also increases, whether you want it to or not.

I'm going to choose to use a d% system, for a number of reasons:

1. It's simple. You only really need 2 dice, it's easy to read the results, and changes to the actual numbers don't make calculating your odds of success/failure any more difficult than it was before. Did you have a 40% chance to succeed, but got a +13 bonus? Now you have a 53% chance to succeed. Easy.

2. Going off of the above, it gives you a consistent, definite spread of results with a fair amount of modification for difficulty. Unlike using a 3d6 bell curve where a +1 bonus is significant, using d% lets you have a little more fun with number fiddling.

3. It's fairly granular. One thing I like about d% systems is that you can pull three results from a single skill test: the overall score (43), the tens-die (4) and the ones-die (3). This lets you tie certain fun things to individual dice, like Initiative, Damage, or some other side-rule.

Infrastructure
Mercs is going to have two methods of quantifying character ability: Skills and Drives.

Skills are going to be pretty basic: a spread of Actions the characters can take, and how proficient they are in that action. When a character tries something where failure will have an effect on the story/action, she'll roll d% and try to roll underneath the skill. Arbitrarily, I'm going to aim for a spread of 20 (minimum) to 75 (maximum) to give a good range from novice to proficient.

Drives are going to be mechanical and role-play motivations for the characters. Because mercenaries in stories are usually motivated individuals who enter the field for money, revenge, or just desperation, I'm going to try and work that in. The best way I can think of doing that right now is to have a number of basic drives (money, self-defense, discovery, etc) which give a static bonus if it's the prime motivator behind the character's action. Again, arbitrarily, I think Drives should range between 1 and 15, giving a minimum character skill of 21 and a maximum of 90. I think preserving a 10% chance of failure no matter what lends the game a sense of danger, even for highly capable characters.

In Summary
To take an action, a character chooses the motivating Drive and relevant Skill. She adds them together and rolls d%. If she rolls underneath that combined total, awesome, she succeeds. If she rolls over, she fails.

Next Time
I get nitty-gritty with the Skills and Drives, and maybe work out some sort of Difficulty mechanic.

Table-Top RPG Design 01: Basic Ideas

I'm a deep nerd, and one of my favorite hobbies is table-top gaming. Whether it's board games, role-playing games, card games, whatever, I've probable at least looked into it as a potential hobby. And because I'm not content to just find stuff, I like to make stuff as well.

So here's a little mini-project I'm going to work on, because I don't have enough irons in the fire:

Unnamed Mercenary Company Role-Playing Game

Basically what I'm going to do is this: I'm going to design a role-playing game from the ground up and post periodic status updates here. Because I spam people enough with this blog, I don't think this will be a very regular thing, but the goal is to eventually have a playable RPG.

To start off: Why?

One of the questions that fledgling game designers face is why bother to develop a TTRPG (table-top role-playing game) when there are so many out there already. The hobby is currently undergoing something of a renaissance, with both old-school systems which aim to bring back and improve the golden-age AD&D-style games (Dungeon World) and new-school systems which challenge the basis of what makes a role-playing game a role-playing game (anything by Vincent Baker, primarily the Powered by the Apocalypse series of games).

What I'm aiming to do is:

Create a new-school TTRPG which focuses on playing a group of characters, as opposed to a single party of adventurers (without going too far into deconstructing the genre) while capturing the feel of the Mercenary-company genre embodied by Glen Cook's Black Company and Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, among others.

How I plan on accomplishing his:

1. Develop a system where players are incentivized to play multiple members of a larger group of characters, perhaps on a rotating basis.
2. Capture the feeling of playing characters who have to work together, both against the world and their own baser instincts, to make their way in a world that does them no favors.
3. Make the system interesting enough for experienced gamers, while still accessible enough for newer players to pick up and play without much trouble.

To acknowledge some systems which come close to fulfilling these goals:

Reign
Based on allowing the players to run a Company, Reign gives players the tools needed to run a group of like-minded characters in making their way in the world. I love the system, but one thing I plan on doing differently is allowing the party to play multiple characters within the Company and have their other guys do stuff off-screen to further their agendas.
What Reign Doesn't Do That I Want to Do:
Reign has some good rules for managing your Company, but I'm looking more for a system which builds a Mercenary network, as opposed to a group which runs a network. One way I think I can carry this out is to develop a base-building section of the game which is a bit more in-depth than Reign's basic stat system.

Apocalypse World
While not necessarily completely based on the idea, Vincent Baker's Apocalypse World allows the players to run Hardholds, which are essentially outposts struggling against the generic apocalypse. The rules are fairly vague, so one difference is that I'm hoping to develop a system which allows for a more in-depth development of a mercenary group which will interact with the world at large.
What Apocalypse World Doesn't Do That I Want to Do:
I really like Apocalypse World in theory, but unfortunately I haven't played it. It's a game heavily focused on the narrative, which is fine, but I'm a fan of fiddly, in-depth management mechanics. I'm hoping to maintain a balance between mechanics which allow some true customization of a location, while also allowing the players some narrative freedom in running a group of people.

Swords Without Master
Swords Without Master is all about playing Conan-style heroes in a Hyboria-style world, which may not seem like there's much of a cross-over, but it's definitely an inspiration. Another game I haven't played but one I've read through extensively, it's another new-school game where the mechanics are heavily based on creating a collaborative story and emphasize that. I admire that, but it might be a little too esoteric for a group of new players, which tend to be the type of people I play with (and there's nothing wrong with that).
What Swords Without Master Doesn't Do That I Want to Do:
Swords Without Master is an excellent example of how mechanics can enforce a game's intended tone, and that's cool...but I think it might go a little too far. I'd like to try and take some inspiration from how players are rewarded for role-playing the dice results, but make it a little easier to grasp.

Next Time:

Attempting to develop a dice mechanic which captures the tone I'm aiming for. Let's see if that's a possibility.