Exploration Is Not Survival. Survival Mechanics Are Not Exploration Mechanics

If you've read this blog enough, you've seen me bemoan the fact that while D&D 5e claims to have 3 pillars of play, it really only supports one of those pillars - combat - with in depth mechanics. In counter to this argument I've seen several people point out that the DMG does in fact have Exploration mechanics. It is true that in the DMG there are mechanics for being in the wilderness, and there is some information there that is useful for exploration, but the mechanical systems that are present are not exploration mechanics. They are survival mechanics.

I won't sit here and tell you that survival mechanics have no place in an exploration pillar. They very much do. However, exploration and survival are not the same thing, even if they often come up linked arm in arm. At least, in High Fantasy. All it really takes it a look to other genres to see the difference.

Mechanics That Help Tell The Story

One of the things that intrigues me about systems like Masks and the upcoming Legend of Five Rings release from FFG is that both games have mechanics that help tell the story. By this I mean they have mechanics that represent some emotional aspect of the characters in the scene, which in turn impacts how the player is expected to play that character. Most systems - at best - try to get out of the way of the story only showing up to help resolve conflicts. These systems though bring the conflict into play.

Weapon Choice Should Be A Character Choice, Not A Power Choice

(Signs you don't know what day of the week it is: a post for Wednesday goes up for Thursday. Sorry!)

As a gamer I feel like my choice in weapon should be more a reflection of the character I'm playing than a necessary choice made if I want to be relevant or at least not behind the curve for my concept. Obviously there are limits to this. Someone who uses a gun should have an advantage - especially at range - than someone with a sword. I'm also not looking for every weapon to be the same. Just for them to be balanced in such a way that how I equip the character says as much about them as what class or race I choose. Today I want to talk about that.

Identifying Combat Bloat

Monday I talked about slogging through combat. In a comment one of our readers mentioned trying to streamline combat slog in a game he or she is designing. I like the idea. I also agree that about 10 minutes for a combat round is ideal, but not one that is easily reached even with experienced players. Before we can make solutions though, we need to understand the problem. So, let's break down combat and find where it slogs.

What Does Your System Focus On?

To find out what aspects a system focuses on you don't have to look much further than the skills chapter. Why is this? Because the breakdown of skills will tell you where and what the developer expects people to be most interested in.

For example, an L5R character I have right now has - among other things - 5 skills at rank 1. Four of those skills cover different types of fighting. He can fight unarmed, with knives, with staves, and with a bow. The fifth skill covers dancing.

Think about that for a second. With one skill rank my character is skilled (not highly, but that skill rank could be anywhere from 1 to 10 to cover how skilled you want) and is capable of doing any kind of dance that exists in Rokugan. Priestly dances for festivals, court dances, clan specific dances, samurai dances, peasant dances, eta dances. In a modern day setting that skill would allow my character to break dance on the street, or compete in top level ball room dances.

On the other hand, my knives skill will only let my character fight with a knife. Make the blade long enough it becomes a short sword and the character has no idea. Take the knife out of the character's hand (pretend I don't have unarmed :) ) and the character, who could otherwise be one of the deadliest people in the world, is suddenly defenseless.

As an example in the other way, by default FATE has one skill for all melee fighting (Fighting) and one skill for all ranged attacks (Shooting) and that's it. Why? Because FATE, by default, is not as interested in the nuances and details of combat.

So what does your system focus on? Why does it focus there? Is that a meaningful choice for a character?

Fate Core vs. Dresden Files RPG

Hello there! How is your labor day weekend going? For me, I'm working all weekend (minus Saturday) as it is Move In day/weekend at the University. Anyhow, with that in mind I figured I'd talk a bit about FATE and how comparing FATE Core to Dresden shows you just how much you can do with the system, provided you're willing to put in the development work.

Ship to Ship Combat - Desinging A Mechanic _ Part 3

Friday we talked about the goal of a Ship to Ship combat system and settled on fast, narrative, and engaging all the players. Tuesday we broke that down into the different areas of the ship, what players could do there, and a bit about the Command position. Today I want to pull it all together with the flow of the system and how it works. This is the part that would likely require the most tweaking for any individual game, so please feel free to poke holes, ask questions, and offer your own suggestions.

Ship to Ship Combat - Designing A Mechanic - Part 2

On Friday I began talking about desinging a Ship to Ship combat system. I laid out a basic idea for the core mechanic, areas of responsibility, and how a round could work. Today I want to flesh out some of those areas a bit more, and then take tomorrow to talk about a way it could all flow together. It is important to note that this is mostly still just a rough first pass at this mechanic, and will need testing and feedback to go through and work. Also remember the goals is for narrative focus and speed more than mechanical crunch.

Ship to Ship Combat - Designing A Mechanic - Part I

I know, I know, I said today I'd talk more about Social Contracts but this has taken my fancy instead and it is something that, while still very much in development, I wanted to share and see if people had input or ideas for what might work. The idea is to have a primarily narrative focused, quick and fun system to handle capital ship combat whether it be in space or at sea. More after the break.

Social Skills - Intimidation

One of the things a lot of people are quick to notice with role playing games is that while we get chapters and chapters of how to use any given rule system for combat we're often left on our own when it comes to non-combat skills. Even systems where the social/political aspect of the game is just as important as the fighting part do this (looking at you World of Darkness and Legend of the Five Rings.) This can then cause problems as GMs and Players have different ideas on how things should work. This gets even more complicated when you consider that socially, people are quite complex and no two people generally react the same way. Today I want to start a small conversation about this, beginning with one of the common "weapons" in the social skill arsenal: intimidation.

How Many Combat Skills Do You Need?

Depending on the system you are running/playing the number of combat skills probably greatly fluctuates. FATE, for example, has only one or two depending on how you are using it while Legend of Five Rings has about ten all things considered. These skills govern not only who can fight (you need a skill to fight well, after all) but also how that person fights. It is an important thing to consider when making a game too because where you have variety you are making player choice matter, and that should hold consequences both good and bad for the player character in question.

What Does Professional Level Really Mean?

A friend and I were having a conversation on Monday about what a "professional" skill level actually represents. To be more to the point, we had posited that in FATE Core a +2 in a skill was about a "professional" level of skill in something, but then started wondering about that because of how things in a game can work. Today I want to put some of our conversation, as I took it anyhow, here and get your own thoughts.

Balancing Obstacles vs. Payoff

In all honesty I hope your long weekend, or normal length weekend, was better than mine. For those that don't know, I have been laid up sick since about Tuesday evening when I some how managed to tweak my back in such a way that caused it to be sore/uncooperative for two days. This led directly into a bout of sickness that is reminiscent of what happened to me last October that I'm thinking it is related somehow. About the only two good points of my weekend was that on Friday I was still able to run game and the session was fun, and that I got to play through a good chunk of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for the PlayStation 3.

It is the latter that is fueling today's post.

Adapting FATE to Run Avatar: The Last Air Bender

A discussion with a housemate yesterday made me realize just how easy it would be to run an Avatar game using the FATE Core System. I figure I'd share that today and maybe provide a starting off point for anyone who was looking to run a home brew game in that universe. Who knows, maybe I'll get to run my own game there at some point in time. So here is how it works.

Social Combat Part I - Social Hit Points

About two years ago I did a post on Social Combat where I touched on some of the basic issues with the idea of systems having social combat rules, but didn't go all that much in depth to how it worked. It's been irking me for a while, but I'd mostly left it out of sight and mind. Recently, that article came back up when I was browsing around the internet and I wanted to revisit it. Only, this time, I wanted to go more in depth and I figured the best place to start was with the concept of Social Hit Points. Shall we begin?

KickStarter: Red Aegis + Discussing the $250 Reward Tier

My cousin keyed me on to a neat Kick Starter going on right now, and I figured I'd share it with you. CLICK HERE and you'll be brought to the Red Aegis Kick Starter page. Give it a look, see if you might like it, and make your decision based on that. Personally, I'm interested in the concept. I'm currently running a generational game for my L5R game, though I have yet to plug up the generations too much. Still, it is neat and I find myself in favor of it. However, there is part of this kickstarter worth talking about a bit more: the $250 pledge level 'reward.'

Gear vs. Character

One of the stated goals for Shadowrun 5th edition is to have more of the power that a character has come from the character him or her self more and not from the gear that they carry. Essentially they want to make the stats and skills that the character has on their sheet mean more for what is going on at the table, and for the quality of their weapons to mean less - while still being meaningful. Today I want to talk about that, and what it means for you and your game.

The Problem With Players Being Villains

This comes up a lot when people are talking about games. Players, at least some players, want to be the villains. They want to be the guys robbing the bank, not the guys stopping the bank from getting robbed. They want to be the ones threatening the world, not defending it. They want to be the ones throwing kittens into trees rather than climbing up and helping them back down. The thing is, there are problems with a game making the players a villain. These problems are amplified for a table top RPG. Today, I'd like to talk about some of these problems.

Representing Combat

Hilariously, despite the fact that most RPGs dedicate the majority of their system section to combat it is one of the things RPGs have a very hard time representing. Now, this isn't the rules systems' fault. Combat is a very fluid thing between people, and to try and break it down into mechanics is a daunting task, one that begs the question of do you go for stream lined rules or essentially require a master's degree in your game to use the system right. Every system does it in its own way. For this post I want to talk about some of the challenges. Also, for the record, I'm going to be focusing on melee combat in a duel scenario more than mass combat.

Price of the Hobby

A bit more random thoughts today. I apologize for these, but some of them have been on my mind for a bit and with things in life not giving as much time for writing as I'd like, sometimes quick posts are better than nothing. At least, I hope they're better than nothing. If you guys would prefer nothing, let me know :) Anyhow, today I want to talk about the price of the hobby we've all chosen to partake in.