Mechanics Mechanics Mechanics

This blog now devolves from structured steps to making the game to a place to document all my musings on mechanics for the game.



In the last blog post I mentioned there would be a way for players to gain the “game” resources (Game,Brashness, Gall, Helpfulness) as they go. I think a good way to do this would be allow the Game Master to invoke one of the characters negative traits so that the player then roleplays that trait coming to the forefront and causing some kind of conflict before receiving something like twice as many points as the negative trait is worth. The player can also invoke their negative traits in this way. So if you have “Doesn’t play well with others -2” and another character is taking the lead through a misty forest, the GM might invoke the trait causing your character to become fed up with the other character taking the lead and deciding to go off on his own and providing you with 4 points to divide between your game resources as you choose.

I also like the idea of having a way of mechanically deciding when a particular conflict is over. Rather than going into an encounter with a wolf and the GM arbitrarily deciding the wolf has 15hp (I don’t think I’ll have hp like this, just using an example), there will be some mechanical way to determine how many times the characters have to succeed individual tasks in order to resolve the current conflict.

Here’s my current idea (specifics need to be playtested but something like this): When creating an NPC or a Place or really anything in the game world, the GM will describe it (to himself, to the players, whichever). A description is made up of a number of adjectives and a noun. Each adjective is given a bonus (from +1 to +3) based on its importance and its power. Each noun is given a bonus too (from +1 to +4), the bonus of the noun must be the highest bonus of each descriptor. This can give you something like Big Bad Wolf (Big +1, Bad +1, Wolf +2) or The Misty Wood (Misty +1, Wood +2). When a conflict arises, the GM rolls 3d6 for each bonus involved in the conflict. The GM then counts up the number of 5’s and 6’s and that is the number of times the players have to succeed, unless failures or the GM brings in new challenges. The bonus given by the noun of the place they are in is automatically added as successes without the need for a roll (as a way to provide a kind of base difficulty), alternatively if a character in the conflict is more important than the place (as in really really important) the GM can use their noun’s bonus as the base. The GM can also add things that have no bonus by rolling a single d6 for them.

eg. The player characters are trying to subdue Wicked (+1) Witch (+2) of the West (+1) who is fleeing through the Misty Wood. There are two successes already thanks to the wood. It’s misty which is going to make it harder to chase her so that’ll add 3d6 to the roll. Another 9d6 from the Wicked Witch, not adding “of the West” because she isn’t in the west right now so it’s not helping her. So the GM rolls 12d6 and counts the 5’s and 6’s +2 for a total of 7 hits. The player characters are gonna have a tough time stopping the witch from escaping!

Looks good so far, but there’s not actually a way for the Witch to escape yet, unless the player characters all get killed or injured as a result of bad rolls. What are those other dice doing? The ones that didn’t get 5’s or 6’s? They can probably represent the number of failures you are allowed before you fail the conflict entirely. A normal success (+0,+1) will remove one of the hits, a good success (+2) will remove one success and allow an additional failure, and a critical success (+3) can remove two hits or remove one and allow two additional failures. Likewise a bad failure (-2) will count as two failures and a critical failure (-3) as 3.



Of course the GM can also just choose to take all the bonuses as hits with no roll whatsoever, there will probably have to be some system governing this. You probably don’t want your final encounter to be anticlimactic because the dice came up badly.

I really like the idea of this system. The adjective+noun descriptors gives things that fairy-tale kind of feel. Instead of George you meet the Friendly Carpenter. Instead of Ekhunzil you meet The Beast. (You can of course still give them regular names as well). It also lets you ramp up the difficulty as you go along by simply introducing more dangerous places. You start in the Pleasant (+0 (1 die)) Meadow (+1), make your way through the Dark (+1) Wood(+2), hike through the Menacing(+2) Mountains (+3) before finally reaching the Forbidden (+3) Fortress (+4). When I write the game up I’ll probably include example difficulties too.

I also have a few thoughts on combat/injuries, and I think it will be handled as above. But there has to be some way for characters to be injured or negatively impacted by their failures. Every time something bad happens (-1 or below) the character gains a new negative trait. This can be either physical or mental. If a player reaches -4 (-3?) total in one of physical or mental negative traits gained this way (so not including your defining flaws) they become incapacitated. This could mean death, being swallowed hole, giving up entirely. Regardless of the specifics, theres going to have to be a conflict to get them back. Bringing them to the Kindly Wizard for resurrection, slicing them out of the monsters stomach, inspiring them with a song. Death is never the end of a character in these mysterious lands, just a temporary setback.

That brings me to the final idea for this entry. Can a character fail? In other games characters fail by dying (not necessarily player failure) or being taken out of the story somehow. I don’t think characters can really fail in my game, but there is one thing that makes it more difficult to them to succeed (succeeding being getting home, or making the choice whether or not to go home). Each setting created to play the game in will have one overarching theme. The setting or the big bad in the setting will have some kind of theme. Some way that they are trying to corrupt the player characters. This corruption comes in the form of more negative traits and can be inflicted on the characters when they act in line with the corruption or when an the setting or the big bad is involved in a conflict and they fail in it. This doesn’t count as a physical or mental negative trait but it’s own category that can cause incapacitation as well.

This theme could be anything from confusion or becoming lost to despair or fear. If a character has any of these “Corruption” traits, they cannot leave the world to go back home. They can be removed as per usual (as a side-effect of good successes or as a result of an ally successfully rolling to help remove it probably).

The theme then also gives you an idea of what things to include in the world. Is the theme confusion? Make it an absurd world like alice in wonderland. Is it becoming lost? Add in mazes and labyrinths and circular reasoning.

That’s it for now.