What do we roll?

                I’ve been writing systems for almost as long as I’ve been playing. This was mostly due to a lack of rulebooks when I was young. My early attempts were crude, but they didn’t have the same complexity as published games so my friends and I could understand them completely. If the rules I wrote didn’t have something to cover a certain event, I’d make a rule up on the spot. These games used six sided dice almost exclusively, as that is what I had available to me. 

                My first exposure to gaming was Palladium’s Rifts. Even from my first taste of gaming, I saw that games could resolve conflict in a variety of ways, using all those wonderful polyhedral dice that were sitting on the table. The Palladium system splits its rolls between a d20-based system for combat and a d100 system for skills. The second system I ever tried was West End Games’ D6 Star Wars game. This game introduced me to dice pools, although I wouldn’t come back to them for many years.

                In a roundabout fashion, I finally arrive at the question I’m trying to ask: When a character in my system wants to do something, what do we roll? First, I should explain what I mean by my system. About six or seven years ago, I was playing C.J. Carella’s Witchcraft, which uses Unisystem. Now, while I generally like Unisystem, it has some flaws. When I set about fixing them with house rules, they kept adding up. Eventually it got to the point where I decided that patching the holes I saw in the system wasn’t enough, and decided to start from scratch. Several versions later, I’ve arrived here, writing the question in the title. 

                As I mentioned before, the first iteration of the system I’ve been calling Crucible was essentially Unisystem. It had a more narrativist bent, but the core mechanics were the same. For those unfamiliar with Unisystem, it is a d10-based system that involves rolling a single die and adding modifiers to get a result of nine or higher. The second iteration was my attempt at a d100-based system but without consulting any others of its type, my only experience with the style being Rifts, many years before. I also introduced a game economy based on the player’s attributes, my first experiment with that aspect of design. The third attempt was barely more than a concept but consisted of a pool of D6s. You kept a certain number of the dice from the pool after rolling and determined your result from the dice you kept. The fourth and most recent version used what was essentially the storyteller system of resolution. You had a pool of D10s and rolled them, those equal to or over a certain number were successes. Rolls with the appropriate amount of successes, well, succeeded.

                To answer the first question properly, I have to ask a second question: Why do we roll what we roll? How does the mechanics of conflict resolution relate to the themes of the game and feel of the setting? I’m going to break down a few rolling mechanics and try to explain how they fit the game and the conflicts that might arise in said game.

BRP (Basic Role-Playing)

Used in: Call of Cthulhu, Runequest

My experience with BRP is limited, having only played a game or two of Runequest, but I have read the books and could probably run it with an hour or two to refresh. I’m going to focus on Call of Cthulhu though as its focus on modern supernatural horror is more along the lines of what I’m look for in my system.

In Call of Cthulhu, the players are struggling against forces far more vast then themselves. The only thing they have on their side is knowledge. This, I think, is the reason for the focus on skills in the game. As such, it makes perfect sense for the game to use a percentile-based system. It also allows players to fine tune exactly how skilled they are in a particular area. A skill of 60% versus as skill of 65% tells you something from a mechanical point of view and something about the character’s background. If your average skilled professional has 60% in a skill then someone with 65% in that same skill has a little bit of natural talent, or has focused a little more on that skill. This lessens the need for skill specializations and the like.

Why this won’t work: In the version of Crucible I’m working on at the moment, skills are not a focus of the system. I’ve removed the strict line between inherent abilities and learned skills. In Eclipse Phase, another system that uses percentile dice, the focus is still on skills. In both cases, the games are in the horror genre (Eclipse Phase less so, but horror is still a major theme). Crucible is not a horror game, at least not primarily.

Storyteller/Storytelling

Used in: World of Darkness, Exalted

Now, I’m most familiar with this system from Exalted, so forgive me if I’m a little off when it comes to this system. I do know that these games use a pool of d10s that you roll trying to get a value that equals a success. Getting a certain number of successes equals a total success on the roll. This may look familiar. When writing my most recent version of Crucible I was concerned with getting it to playability quickly and less concerned with an innovative dice mechanic. This is not as much of a concern for me now. However, I want an original set of mechanics that fit the mood and intentions of the setting.

Why this won’t work: Storyteller is a universal system. The dice mechanics do not relate to the feel of the game. It accomplishes conflict resolution in a relatively simple manner, but the actual mechanics don’t reflect the nature of those conflicts.

Roll and Keep

Used in: 7^th Sea, Legend of the Five Rings

This system uses a pool of d10s as well. Players roll a number of d10s and choose to keep the results of some of the dice rolled. Instead of the difficultly/degree of success hinging on success values, the result total value of kept dice determines the result. To understand what this system does well, we need to look at what the games that use it do. 7^th Sea is a swashbuckling game and L5R is a game about samurai. The strongest link I can find between the two is that both genres put heavy emphasis on the duel.

 Why this won’t work: If the system excels at duels and swordfights, it lends itself towards genres in which this is a focus. Crucible is urban fantasy, not typically a genre that focuses on duels. This is more of what I’m looking for, a game in which the mechanics aid the genre. Sadly, it’s the wrong genre.

Fate

Used in: Dresden Files, Kerberos Club, Fate Core

This system uses Fudge dice, six sided dice with positive, negative, and neutral results. The driving force behind the game is not the dice mechanics but the game economy, fate points. These points allow players to use traits to drive the narrative. The use of skills and abilities can generate traits that player can then spend points on the drive the narrative. I won’t focus too much on the idea of game economy, that’s material for a different post.

Why this won’t work: The game economy drives narrative choices from the player. This isn’t a direction I want to take with Crucible. Stripping away concerns about game economy, we are left with a very simple conflict resolution mechanic, one that has no inherent ties to genre or theme. Fate Core exemplifies this.

ORE (One Roll Engine)

Seen in: A Dirty World, Wild Talents, Nemesis

ORE is another universal system, one that also uses a pool of d10s. Instead of looking for certain values on the individual dice to determine success or a total value of accumulated dice, you look for groups of dice with the same value. For instance, if I roll six dice and get a result of 5, 5, 7, 8, 8, 8, I have two sets, one that is two fives and the other that is three eights. The height of the values and the number of the dice in the set both contribute to the degree of success.

In general, the system is universal. The genres in the games listed range from Superheroes to Noir So clearly, the system has no strong ties to genre in the conflict resolution mechanic. I will take a moment to look at the mechanics of A Dirty World, the ORE take on Noir. In that game, your stats and skills change from moment to moment, not representing inherent abilities and static levels of knowledge but instead reflecting emotional states. This novel mechanic is how the game expresses the noir genre.

Why this won’t work: Like other universal systems, it lacks a link between genre and conflict resolution mechanics. It does illustrate that what you roll isn’t necessarily what ties you to a genre. A Dirty World is also a good example of what I hope to accomplish by ignoring the conventions of stats and skills. The major difference between their stat and skill analogues is the versatility with which they are used.

                I don’t have an answer for my initial question. I don’t know what we roll. I do know a few things now. I know that I want to tie what and how we roll dice into the genre of the game. I also know I want to take a closer look at game economies. I also want to look at the themes of my game before deciding how I want to resolve conflicts within it. I also now know that the dice mechanics aren’t the only thing I can do to reflect the theme of the game.

Gaslighting, Agency, and Continuity

                I was thinking today about continuity. My initial thoughts were not, initially, in the narrative sense of continuity, but in the sense of our frame of existence. Aside from memories and physical evidence, we have no way of verifying if events in the past actually happened. Normally, this isn’t a concern, memory and physical evidence is more than enough. Those facts change when it comes to games.

                When a game starts, players typically have a back-story for their character and then the GM sets the scene. Back-stories represent an individual character’s memories of the past and the current scene is, in effect, the present. As play progresses, especially if the GM improvises, individual scenes lose some details, the degree of which depends on the group’s memories. I’ve lost notes before and the names or descriptions of NPCs change as I’m forced to improvise the local bartender again.

                A tactic I’ve used in horror or suspense gaming is something called Gaslighting. Now, in the real world, this is a pretty horrible thing to do to someone. In the context of a game, it can help put the players on edge, something I think good horror roleplaying needs. As an aside, there is a very fine line when using tactics like this on your players. I would never condone, for example, using spiders to scare an extremely arachnophobic player. Horror roleplaying is fun in the same way a horror movie is fun. The players want to be scared, but there is a breach of trust if you use information you know about your players to upset them. Nevertheless, I digress.

                Gaslighting, to put it simply, is subtle manipulation of information in order to have people question their senses and their memory. The players are entirely reliant on the GM for information about the game world, barring any notes they take. Take the local bartender I mentioned earlier, for example. If I say in one scene that the bartender’s name is Rachel and in then, in the next session mention Rory the bartender that can either be a mistake in continuity or deliberate. If the players are a particular location looking for clues, or something similar, changing small details can serve to heighten the tension. If I mention a brass bell on a blue ribbon, and then later, describe the ribbon as black, this can throw players off. If you use this tactic, use it subtly and sparingly. Using it too much robs the players of their agency. For that matter, using it at all robs the players of agency in a small way.

                When you change information intentionally, your players cannot act on information previously given. If I say that a room has a door on the left, right, and center players choose a course of action based on that information. If I change that detail by removing the center door, this invalidates an option that the players might have picked. This violation of player agency can, if done right, put your players on edge. Their memories and the physical reality of the world don’t match up. Do it too much and it’s more annoying than anything else.  

                Now, I brought up back-story before for a reason. I wouldn’t recommend directly contradicting or changing anything in a player’s back-story. They put in the effort to bring material to your table, even if they’re the only one informed by it. By altering it, you are again, violating both the trust of your players and their agency. As GM, you are allowed a certain degree of editorial control of the content of the material your players bring to the table, but that is something you work out with the player, hopefully before the first session even starts. 

A way to manipulate the information your players bring to the table without cheapening their efforts is to change the context. Work with the material the players include in their back-stories to create narrative twists and turns. Don’t contradict any facts your players create, but write material to cast those facts in a different light. 

In terms of campaign structure, you can use manipulation of facts as the basis of a game. Completely invalidating the advice I gave earlier, separate your player’s back-stories into discrete events. Sort these events into two categories, factual and non-factual. With these details, you create a horror or investigative plot in which the mystery is the character’s own back-stories. With this set-up, you are not only engaging with the materials your players create, but also making it the focus of the game. I wouldn’t spring this kind of game on your players, make sure their okay with it first, possibly by trying some other tricks involving back-story first.

Podcasts and Panels: The Hourglass Model in Adventure Design

I attended a panel at my local gaming convention earlier this year and attended a couple of panels on RPG design. I’m also a big fan of podcasts, one of which is the Co-optional Podcast put on by the Polaris Network on Youtube. Both are about gaming (tabletop and video respectively), but I didn’t expect to encounter thoughts on the same style of design in both.

In both instances, panelists brought up a style of plot Alex Flagg referred to as the hourglass model. He used it to describe a method of adventure design, so that’s the way I’ll describe it, as it fits better with the general theme of this blog. You start with a base point, the hook that introduces characters to the plot, or the introduction to the campaign. From there, you move out into a sandbox style of play in which you defeat challenges that lead you closer to a major event. This major event acts as a bottleneck between the sandbox style of play and the rest of the adventure. Completing the bottleneck event leads the players to a new hook and into a second sandbox. 

On the Co-optional Podcast, this was an example of a problem with Mass Effect. It always funnels you towards a particular set piece, despite having a free roam style of play, typically. I can’t say for sure how true this is, having only really played the first game. This was a problem with the design and took away from their enjoyment of the game. Now, when I was at the panel, I thought that this model was an improvement on the usual sandbox style of design because it gave forward momentum and a chance to create impressive set pieces.

One of the biggest issues, I think, with sandbox games in tabletop gaming is prep time. A linear story requires the least amount of preparation but grants the least player agency. A branching story has a balance between prep time and player agency. Sandbox style play has an immense amount of prep time but grants the most agency to players, often to the point of overwhelming them. To me, the hourglass style is a mix of the branching story and the sandbox. Players are moving towards the bottleneck but can plan how to do so. Having a bottleneck means that you can spend the time making an impressive set piece with complex mechanics or narrative impact without worrying that your players will miss it entirely. Your sandbox play can be looser, evolving organically in play because these important moments have more impact on the players.

Now, I’m a designer and GM first and a player second so my views on adventure/ campaign design are skewed towards set up and structure more than they are playability. When I heard the panelists on the Co-optional podcast cite this design philosophy as a problem I had a few issues. Notably, these people are players, not designers. I saw three possibilities:

1)      This style of game only works in tabletop

2)      This style of game is more appealing to designers than players

3)      This style of play is not for everyone

I don’t have an answer. The reason for this post is to explain the problem. I may post later explaining the options in detail. Also, I may look at player agency and how it relates to design choices. Also, listed below are some links to the podcasts and panels I referred to today as well as Alex Flagg’s company. At time of posting, the recording of the Co-optional Podcast episode I mentioned isn’t up.

Relevant Links:

The Panel:

ThePodcast: (Episode 34)

Alex Flagg:

Events in Fisher Kings

I was going to do the introduction to this setting as a piece of short fiction but that sort of stalled. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish it, or something like it in the near future. In the meantime, I'm posting a short introduction and timeline for Fisher Kings.

The game takes place in a fictional version of Bellingham, WA and the surrounding towns. The fictional city on this spot is called Portsmouth. Setting it in a fictional city gave me the freedom to essentially arrange the landscape however I chose. I divided the town into four districts, using the name of towns in the area.

1) Portsmouth (the district) is primarily industrial, mostly abandoned with the decline of heavy industry in the area. It is home to the majority of the city's squatters and homeless. What isn't factories and warehouses, abandoned or not, is predominantly row houses and other low income housing.

2) Bellingham (again, the district) is the city's downtown core as well as home to many apartments, large and small. Over the course of the game, this region of town has taken the most beating, having hosted multiple superpowered brawls.

3) Fairhaven is an upper class district with trendy stores and expensive houses and apartments. For the first eight or so sessions, the group was based here.

4) Sehome is a middle class district mostly made up of suburbs. The very rich tend to live on the border between here and Fairhaven. The PCs have spent very little time here. I don't write much in the way of crime-fighting hooks in suburban America, oddly enough.

Structurally, the game is in a sandbox style of play with occasional moments in which I lean in to take narrative control in order to have a structured adventure, but I've only done that twice so far. So, with that in mind, here is the spoiler free timeline for the background and first few sessions. I'll post a character overview soon.


Timeline

August 16^th 2013- The night sky is filled with a strange pulsing ring of light. This ring is visible around the world and stays in place for exactly one rotation of the Earth.

August 17^th 2013- Unknown Human Form Threat 01 appears in Chicago. The media comes up with various names for him, including “The Destroyer” and, “The Chicago Monster”. UHFT1 appears to be, one Mister Ewan Brown. Mr. Brown was a tax consultant known for having a bit of a temper and a large ego. He snapped and destroyed most of Chicago in a matter of hours, exhibiting the powers of flight, superstrength and the ability to project waves of lethal force from his hands. Brown is the world's first taste of Superhumans. Their next tastes are the few superhuman that are recorded standing up to Brown. The army is swift to blockade the city. There is a stalemate. Brown kills anyone who enters his city, but will not leave. Many civilians are left alive and made to worship Mr. Brown.

August 18^th 2013- The Bellingham Police Station is emptied out late that night. Paul Abramson, career criminal, kills the police on duty, the other prisoners, and anyone else he comes across on his flight to freedom. There is one notable exception: Automaton. This hero is wearing homemade powered armour. The hero and the sociopath's monster fight in the streets, neither getting the upper hand until Abramson's monster vanishes, its master nowhere in sight. Meanwhile, on the other side of the district, a new superhuman makes himself know, he appears to be a teleporter with a sword.

August 19^th 2013- Despite the police's best efforts, they are unable to find either Abramson or Automaton. Disappearances start in Sehome and Fairhaven. They seem more like evacuations, money and personal items are taken with no sign of struggle or forced entry. The only thing connecting them is a small stone tower, shaped like a rook, left somewhere on the property, visible from the street. Announced over the internet, a group of superhuman wannabes meet up in a fast food restaurant. Somewhat concealed among their numbers are a number of true superhumans who exchange information with each other.

August 20^th 2013- Rumors appear about a teleporting creature stalking the rooftops of the city. A cluster of house fires start in Sehome. Automaton and two new heroes, dressed like high tech Greco-Roman warriors, appear at the scene and help rescue workers to extricate those trapped in the burning buildings. Automaton gives his name to reporters for the first time. The other two introduce themselves as Ares and Vulcan. While the armored heroes take up the spotlight, a masked superhuman uses their strange powers to heal those injured with a touch.

August 21^th 2013- 8 police officers and 13 homeless people die when they attempt to flush Paul Abramson out of his hiding spot. Abramson escapes again in the confusion.

(Game Begins)

August 22^th 2013- A group of super heroes and super villains clash at the site of a bank robbery. This fight ends with three of the heroes dead. The Superheroes were members of a team out of Seattle who came down to hunt down Paul Abramson. The remaining member of the team, a shapeshifter called Feral vows to hunt down those responsible.

August 23^rd 2013- Multiple people in Bellingham report being interrogated and savagely beaten by a dark haired, beast-like man.

A group of superhumans step in to stop a jewelry store robbery. This results in the death of one of Portsmouth’s homeless, apparently one that possessed superpowers. The other two thieves surrender to the intervening superhumans and disappear with them to parts unknown.

Ares and Vulcan stop an attack on an upscale restaurant in Fairhaven by four strange, beetle-like humanoids. These creatures, upon their defeat, revered back into humans and seemed to have no memory of the events that led them to attack.

Lastly, a massive crop of strange fungus infests and destroys a medical research building in Sehome.

August 24^th 2013- A anti-power militia lynches a pair of young superhumans (One with the power of flight, and the other who can generate a spray of paint-like pigment). They beat and hang the two superhumans. In retaliation, radicals from the group Powers Unite hunt down and kill those responsible.

Radicals from Powers Unite retaliate and kill the skinhead militia “True Americans”

The President declares the creation of the Anti-Human Form Threat Division or A.T.D, an organization specifically created to deal with the growing danger of Unknown Human Form Threats (i.e. Superhumans) 

August 25^th 2013- The Portsmouth Heroes put Loot and Pillage on parole and use them to help bust the arms dealing Rook Gang. All except Armory and Scatter die. Armory is taken in. A mysterious masked woman in a scaled cloak retrieves Scatter. Their mansion in Sehome is the site of a mass exodus as the brainwashed victims try to go back to their homes. The Portsmouth PD cordon off the area, a retrieve the weapons contained therein.  

A new hero, Android makes his debut. He busts a drug den that the police knew about but could not get the evidence to make a move. Bristol is overthrown by someone calling himself ‘Liege’.

August 26^th 2013- No major news.

August 27^th 2013- Saul Hayes, of the law firm ‘Marino and Hayes’ in Bellingham releases a statement in support of the A.T.D and his firm’s resolve to deliver funds and aid to nascent alphabet organization. A banker is murdered and hung by his feet on a busy thoroughfare.

August 28^th 2013- ATD sets up a branch in Bellingham under Director Anna-Maria Nesmith. The Gygax building, home to ‘Marino and Hayes’ collapses out of the blue. Abramson attacks a group of street kids, killing them all. The city of Bangalore vanishes.