I have a dream.
But I’ll get to that in a minute.
First, this is a Bulls$&% article. It’s me rambling about some game design issue that probably matters only to me. Or, at the very least, is only really useful to me. And, of course, there is absolutely nothing hidden in this post about games I might or might not be designing in the future. Nor is there anything other than gaming advice. Don’t try to distill any Angry Games secrets from here and do not try to use my words to better yourself beyond the gaming table. And don’t expect reading this to be a good use of your time.
Second, like all of my Bulls$&% articles, this whole rambling screed is due to commenters and feedbackers and the like. People who felt the need to weigh in on a previous article and piss me off with their unsolicited, unqualified, and irrational opinions. So, if you think this article is written to dig at you specifically, well, you’re right and you’re wrong. It IS written to take a dig at you. But not specifically you. Because you’re not special. There are lots of people like you. So, this is written to take a dig at you collectively.
Here’s the twist, though: I’m not actually pissed off. Yeah. I’m as surprised as you are. The comments and feedback which triggered the writing of this Bulls$&%? They didn’t actually make me mad at all. Because people were doing exactly what they were supposed to do. But some of them also seemed really confused as to why I didn’t do the thing they felt they needed to do. And so, I want to explain why I expect YOU – as a GM – to finish MY game design work. And why I won’t do it for you. And how that makes the game better.
Third, like many of my Bulls$&% articles, this is also written to set the stage for an actually useful future article. And maybe to prevent some future fights about the said actually useful future article. In fact, this article grew out of my trying to write an introduction for the future article and getting sidetracked by an issue I didn’t want to fight about.
Okay, that covers the prefaces and the disclaimers and shit. Let’s get on with this.
A Wish for Games that Work
I have a dream. And I want to tell you about it.
Picture this: a group of four to six people is sitting around a table playing an exciting table-top role-playing game of fantasy adventure. Most of them are players. And they have a piece of paper in front of them called a character sheet. Now, it doesn’t have to be a piece of paper. It could be a document on an iPad or whatever. But it also could be a piece of paper. And it works just as well whether it’s a piece of paper or a document on a tablet. One of them is a Game Master. Or something like that. The title doesn’t matter. What matters is he has a small pile of papers in front of him. Maybe a little magazine-like thingy made of paper. Maybe just loose sheets. Maybe a document on an iThingy or lappy-type-top. Whatever. But it functions just as well whether it’s made of paper and ink or pixels and bits.
And with those humble tools and some dice and some miniatures and some cans of carbonated beverages, they play their exciting game of fantasy adventure for four or five hours. And they have a great time. And at the end of the play session, when the Game Master is about to hand out experience or one of the players wants to buy a new sword or something, one of them says “hey, where’s the rule book?” And they realize the rulebook isn’t anywhere nearby. It’s on the Game Master’s desk three rooms away. And they didn’t even notice. Because not once did they need to open that rulebook while they were playing the game. Not once did they have to look up the wording of a specific spell or the rules for some obscure combat maneuver or the stats for some monster that was left out of the published pieces of paper the GM paid good money for.
And that’s why the Tension Pool doesn’t have multicolored dice for different day-parts or determine which faction a random encounter comes or use different sizes of dice in different situations or have a bunch of different possible outcomes depending on the specific combinations of numbers that pop up on the dice. But that’s why it’s also okay if YOURS does.
Did that take a sudden turn? Well, let me explain. But before I can explain what the hell I’m talking about, I need to make sure we’re all on the same page. This article is NOT about the Tension Pool mechanic I’ve written about in several previous articles. But it DOES use the Tension Pool as an example of an important principle I’m trying to follow when I design mechanics these days. So, I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page. So, indulge me a quick explanation of the mechanic I’ve already explained countless times before, purposely reworded to highlight a specific facet of the design. It’ll take two paragraphs tops.
What the Heck is the Tension Pool
The Tension Pool is this mechanic I designed to make the players aware of the passage of time and the recklessness of their actions. Just like when real people are doing something dangerous and become increasingly aware of the passage of time the longer things go on without anything going wrong, the players can see the passage of time on the game table and become increasingly concerned that something is going to go wrong.
So, you have a visible dice pool in the middle of the table. It starts with no dice in it and it can have a maximum of six six-sided dice in it. Whenever the players take a careful, cautious, measured, or time-consuming action in a scene, encounter, or location, you can add one die to the time pool. Whenever the players take a bold, risky, or reckless action, you pick up all the dice and roll them. If they take an action that’s both time-consuming and risky, you add a die and then roll all the dice. And whenever you add the sixth die to the pool, you roll all the dice and then start over with an empty pool. Whenever you roll the dice, if any of them show a one, a complication arises in the scene. A wandering monster shows up or a natural hazard or a weird, magical haunting effect or the profane ritual advances another step. Whatever.
That’s the Tension Pool. Simple.
General Rules and Specific Instances
Okay, let’s get back to my dream. Have you ever wondered why you can’t run a game of D&D without referencing something eventually? And let me be clear here. When I say, “look something up,” I don’t mean you have to physically refer to a rulebook. There are lots of ways in this day and age to look something up. If you have to read a paragraph of text on a spell card before you can cast the spell, that’s looking something up. If you have to click a hyperlink in your fancy-schmancy character sheet app to display a chunk of rules pertaining to the polearm master feat, that’s looking something up. If you have to stop the game to read more than a sentence or otherwise seek information you can’t remind yourself of “with a glance,” that’s looking shit up.
And that is a major damned speedbump to role-playing games. Especially action-oriented role-playing games. There is nothing more fun than to stop a combat before a crucial roll to look up how grappling works. And here I am using sarcasm. Because actually, any other way of playing the game is more fun.
Now, here’s the thing: I know that my dream is impossible. I know that the GM is going to have to refer to stuff. Because the GM can’t keep an entire adventure in their head. There’s details of scenes, encounters, monster stats, mechanical effects, all that crap. And sometimes stuff does get forgotten. And it needs to be referenced. Same with players. There’s details of specific spells that need to be referenced occasionally. But, ONE of the goals in game design should be to minimize the amount of referencing that needs to be done.
And note that I have to say ONE of the goals. Because I’m talking to the Internet and most of the Internet treats everything like a freaking extreme or a binary choice. So, if I say, “the goal should be to minimize the need to reference complex rules during play,” I’ll get some moron who is like “so the wizard can never have complex spells; is THAT what you want? No wizards?” No. Designing anything is about founding a balance point between many different goals. Like depth and approachability for instance. So, can we please keep that hyperbolic extremist binary bullshit out of the comments for once?
Let’s take spells in D&D as an example of what I’m struggling to say. This is so clear and so easy in my head to see. It’s just hard to explain.
Now, when it comes to any game mechanic, there’s really two parts it. First, there’s the general rules. The rules of the game that explain how that class of things works. The rules that are the same for all of those things. Second, there’s the rules that pertain to a specific instance or situation or implementation of those general rules.
So, in D&D, there’s a rule for casting spells. And it goes like this: when you want to cast a spell, you choose what spell you want to cast, use the appropriate action as defined by the spell, choose a valid target based on what the spell says is a valid target, choose what level of spell slot to use to cast the spell, and then resolve the spell according to the rules of the specific spell. Oh, and you have to satisfy the component needs of the spell. You need to be able to speak clearly, gesture emphatically, and you need an ingredient at hand. But you don’t need an ingredient at hand if you have a spellcasting focus or a spell component pouch. Unless the component has a listed cost. Then you must have it. And it is not consumed unless the spell says it is.
Now, separate that out into the general rules for spellcasting and the specific rules for the specific spell in the specific situation. The general rule part is “choose the spell and spend a spell slot of the spell’s level or higher.” The specific rules are “expend the specified type of action, choose a target within the specific range and with the specified parameters that is valid for the specific spell, satisfy the specific component needs for the need, and resolve the spell according to the rules.” There’s a lot of specific rules and not a lot of general rules.
Now, all of those rules – the general and the specific – have to either be remembered or referenced. And, ideally, the players – and the GM – keep as much of the game in their head and only have to reference small things. Things that can be kept on a character sheet and referenced at a glance. Or things that can be kept in the GM’s notes and be referenced with a quick read. Generally speaking, it’s going to the broad, general rules that get stuck in the players’ heads. And it’s going to be the specific rules that need to be referenced more frequently. For a good example of how this plays outright, look at weapon attacks in D&D.
To make a weapon attack, roll an attack roll and, if you hit, roll damage, right? Sure, you have to pick a valid target in range. And there’s some slight differences between making ranged and melee attacks. But the information specific to each attack is pretty limited. Attacks vary by damage roll, by reach or range, and via a handful of descriptive keywords. One line of text with some very easy-to-reference-at-a-glance numbers is all it takes.
Spells, on the other hand, are a mess. They do all sorts of different things. And there are no general patterns. They don’t even all use the same types of rolls to resolve them. You have to reference every spell because you can’t keep all the details of every spell in your head. There are too many details and they vary too much. And the question is whether it’s all necessary?
Like, I understand having spells that are limited to close range and spells that are long-range, but do we really need 30 feet spells and 60 feet spells and 120 feet spells? Can’t we just have melee spells and ranged spells? Or what about melee spells, line-of-sight spells, and unlimited range spells. Three ranges. And could spells either require a component or not require a component? And if they require a component, then the wizard must always provide the component? And the only spells that do require components are the “costly” spells like resurrection and shit? And couldn’t any spell that just deals damage be limited to two lines of text? I’m pretty sure they could be. And then there’s the resolution thing. Spells either require no roll or require a spell attack roll or allow the target to make a saving throw of one of six different types and sometimes the saving throw only prevents part of the effects of the spell. Holy mother of Gygax, why is it like that?!
But this isn’t about railing on D&D. This about my philosophy, not WotC’s philosophy. Or lack of philosophy. Because I don’t think they have one. I think spells are the way they are because they have always been that way. Which is a bad reason to do what I think is a bad thing. What I would like to see is a broad, general rule for how all spells work. And then have specific spells work within that framework. Take the things that all or most spells do or that all or most spells require and make them general rules. Pare the rules down to something that can get stuck in the players’ heads. And then let different spells work off that framework.
For example, why do some spells require ability checks and some spells require attack rolls and some spells require nothing? There’s nothing else in the game that does that. So, all spells require ability checks. If the check succeeds, the spell does its thing. If the check fails, the spell doesn’t do its thing. And maybe the slot isn’t expended. And break down all the spells into some simple range categories. As few as possible, as I said. And then start looking at other things. Spells that deal damage – even if they carry extra effects – could all be listed in a table no more complex than the weapon table. And you could use keywords to define things like multiple targets and areas of effect. And why do there need to be so many areas of effect? And all spells require an implement. Different classes can have different implements – wands, staves, holy symbols, magical instruments, demon hearts, daggers, books, whatever – but all spells require an implement. No implement, no magic. And some spells require materials as well. But only the spells whose materials are actually a limiting factor. Resurrection and Identify and crap like that. And the material is always consumed.
And then you can move beyond that. There are some spells that, even if cast successfully, cause some sort of mishap or problem. You can teleport off target. You can contact a lying entity from the wrong outer plane. Your portal can send you to the wrong place. Maybe mishaps should just be part of the general rules. Spells can fumble. Magic is risky. So, every spell has a mishap. Minor spells have minor mishaps. Big spells have big mishaps.
The point is, these things all become part of the expectation and thus part of the shorthand. A spell needs a couple of lines of text tops to define it because it fits in a framework of broad rules that can become habits. Just like everyone eventually knows the steps in making an attack roll, everyone knows the steps in casting a spell.
I also have a dream that people will actually want to pay me for this crap. Feel free to leave a tip and make that dream come true. Or true-er.
That’s the first part of my dream. Try to take as many specific things in the game as possible and expand them into broad, general rules. And once you have a thing that pops up in the game more than once or twice, you want to decide how it works for everyone. Magic needs a system for how all magic works. If wizards can have familiars and rangers can have pets and druids can summon animals and some spellcasters can conjure or create magical constructs and anyone can hire a hireling, you need a general system for how allies work. How do you handle all NPC companions of the party in the game? Make them all work the same way generally.
And then drill down into the specifics to differentiate things. But not too much. See, it isn’t really about having two levels of rules. It’s about having layers and layers of rules. For example, take magic: you have a general system that defines how spells and spellcasting works. And those rules are the same for every spellcaster. For all magic. Now, you have two types of spellcasters: arcane and divine. How do each of them tweak the system? How are different arcane spellcasters different? How are different divine spellcasters different?
And the trick is the more specific you get, the smaller and smaller you want the rules tweaks. And you want them small to begin with. For example, the difference between divine and arcane spellcasters could just be in the spell lists. Divine spellcasters have no direct attack spells, for example. But they have healing spells. They have all the white magic. Arcane spellcasters have the direct attack spells, but very few healing and support spells. They have the black magic. That’s something that doesn’t even need to be remembered. It’s just obvious in the spell lists.
Sorcerers know few spells but have more slots and can cast their spells on the fly. And maybe the sorcerers have limited spell lists based on their themes. Wizards can learn any arcane spell, but they have to prepare most of their big spells in advance and they have fewer slots. Maybe warlocks are the worst of both worlds, being less versatile than wizards and having fewer spell slots than sorcerers, but they get some other kind of benefit. Unique spells only their patrons have access to. I’m just spitballing here. The point is, these tweaks are small and most of them are addressed away from the table. They don’t change the basic rules of spellcasting so much. Create differentiation in small ways that don’t break any of the general rules.
It’s all about recognizing the scope of the rules. The rules for a specific spell should be the smallest and least complicated rules. Because, by definition, they only affect that specific spell. They are going to be hard to remember, they are going to have to be referenced every time, so they should be quick to see at a glance. The rules for specific spellcasters are limited in scope, they affect only one class, so they shouldn’t require too much reference either. After all, even if the other players can ignore those rules, the GM can’t. The GM does have to know how everything works. He has to keep five different sets of class rules in his head. The rules for spellcasting have the largest scope. They affect all magic. So, most of the rules of magic should sit there. But they still can’t be so complicated that they can be learned and remembered.
Levers to Pull
Obviously, there’s some tricks to making this layered design approach work. The first trick is to figure out what you need broad rules for. Like most RPGs don’t seem to have broad, general rules to define pets, hirelings, familiars, and summoned beasts. Instead, there’s specific rules for each of those things written into specific classes or feats or buried in the DMG. And a good designer should have stopped and said “look, these are all doing basically the same thing in different ways, let’s make a system for pets and figure out how it interacts with other mechanics like balancing encounters and stuff and figure out how the stat blocks should look for all pets and see if we can come up with a general listing for different types of pets and animates and constructs and summoned minions and whatever and then, THEN, we can come up with the specific rules for how specific classes and feats and whatever use that system.”
The second trick is to match the number of fiddly little details to design the rules at every level of scope and scale to be easy to remember or to be referenced at a glance. Larger scale rules need to be remembered. Smaller rules need to be glanced at. So, that puts a limit on the complexity of the rules at every level. But you can also increase the depth by layering on the complexity.
The third trick is to build enough levers into your broad rules to pull on at lower levels of scope and scale to add depth without adding complexity. And that’s a big issue.
Let’s use action resolution as an example here. And we’ll use the D&D 5E version. As written. Warts and all.
The basic, general rule that goes like this: roll a d20, add an ability modifier, add a proficiency modifier if appropriate, add some other modifiers, compare the result to a DC, and if the result is equal to or greater than the DC, the action succeeds. Otherwise, it fails. So far, so good, right? Now, D&D layers on some complexity right at the top level. There’s three different types of checks plus a fourth type of check that isn’t differentiated in the rules except it does work differently. There’s the attack roll, the saving throw, and the ability check. And an ability check can also be a skill check. Skill checks aren’t technically differentiated in the rules, but they do work slightly differently from ability checks. But I’m not going to have that rant again.
So, if you’re trying to implement some new rule or design an adventure or adjudicate an action at the table, what are the different ways you can differentiate that one action from any other. What are the levers you can pull on? By the rules as written?
You can allow the action to be resolved as an attack roll. And the rules for attack rolls are pretty well defined and connected to the weapon or spell or attack form being used. You can allow the action to be unresolved by a saving throw. In which case, you can pick one of the six ability scores to govern that saving throw. You can allow the action to be resolved by a specific skill check and pick one of the eighteen skills in the game, but that defines the ability being used. You can also allow the action to be resolved using a tool proficiency, which doesn’t technically limit the ability being used except it kind of does by implication. Or you can allow the action to be resolved by an ability check and pick one of the six abilities, but then the character is not going to get a proficiency bonus on the check.
So, the type of check is the first lever. And it determines what second lever you have at your disposal, what ability or skill or saving throw provides a bonus. And that’s all it is. A bonus.
Now, the third lever is the DC. You can set the DC however you want. Of course, some DCs – like Armor Class – are mechanically defined. But you can also modify the DC based on the situation. So, you can set the DC.
The fourth lever is granting advantage or disadvantage. Or granting both and allowing them to cancel out. And technically, a fifth lever is providing a numerical bonus or penalty. But the game kind of shies away from encouraging GMs to do that. It wants them to use advantage or disadvantage.
And that’s it. For every action in the game, you have four levers to pull to differentiate the action. And they are all numerical. They all just tweak the odds of the outcome. They don’t do anything else. At least not as written. I will talk about the options that aren’t written in a minute.
Now, these levers are important because they are where all the role-playing actually happens. When the player chooses a certain action, that is, they try to accomplish something via a specific method, that choice needs to have consequences that can be felt in the game. Choosing Intimidate over Persuade, for example, should carry some weight. But there aren’t really a lot of levers for the GM to pull. There seem to be a lot, but they all amount to the same two things: what modifiers to do you add to the roll and what DC do you roll against?
The action resolution system in D&D can model any action you can imagine. It’s very open. But it’s also very shallow. It’s very bland. And it’s actually very complex for that blandness. The whole idea of differentiating attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws is something that seems to have a lot of game balance issues built around it. That is, a lot of game effects specify that they only affect ability checks or just attack rolls or whatever. But beyond those fiddly bits, the rolls all work the same way. An attack roll is just an ability check, after all. And if you are proficient with the attack form, you get to use your proficiency bonus. Saving throws are ability un-checks. They prevent an action from happening. But they are just ability checks. And if you’re proficient with a specific type of saving throw, you get to use your proficiency bonus. And that’s why I’m a big proponent of simplifying the whole mess by saying: “the GM chooses an ability score that governs the action and if the player has a relevant proficiency, they can add their proficiency modifier.” It simplifies everything. It’s a very easy, intuitive rule. And it doesn’t change anything.
So, imagine that as the starting point. The player describes an action. Based on that description, the GM asks for an ability check. If the player has a relevant proficiency – be it with a particular weapon or a skill or a tool or language or whatever – they can add their proficiency modifier. Add other situational modifiers. Apply advantage and disadvantage. Compare the result to the DC. Same different, but slightly more intuitive and cleaner and easier to learn.
And notice it adds another lever that GMs and adventure designers could use. If a proficiency is just a word that describes some area of training or expertise that gives permission for a bonus and if a player just needs a list of them on the character sheet, then it’s really easy to add a new proficiency to the game. Just give it a name and let the players write it down. For example, let’s say you want siege combat to be a part of your game. You can just make a proficiency in siege weaponry available. Or imagine you’re writing an adventure in which a character becomes partially possessed with a ghost who drives the quest. And the ghost has knowledge of a particular adventure site where the adventure takes place. You could give the character a temporary proficiency in “Dungeon Lore (The Shrine of Whatever).” Since everyone knows how proficiencies work already because you’ve made the rule general an intuitive, any GM could pick up that adventure and know how to adjudicate the weird effect of having a ghost share one of the players’ brains. At least in terms of giving a bonus to navigating a particular dungeon.
For that matter, there’s a bunch of game effects that grant a double proficiency bonus or expertise. If that’s a part of the broad, general rule – “and if the player has a relevant expertise, they can add double the proficiency bonus” – you can write game effects around that without having to spell it out every time.
Now, let’s be even crazier. Let’s add another general rule to the pile. Try this: “if the result of the die roll is equal to or greater than the DC, the action succeeds, and the amount by which the result exceeds the DC is called the ‘margin of success.’ If the action fails, the amount by which the DC exceeds the result is called the ‘margin of failure.’ While most actions either succeed or fail, you can use the margin of success or failure to determine the outcome based on how well or how poorly the character performed.”
That’s a pretty easy rule to remember too. And, by itself, it doesn’t change much. But it provides a lever that can be used when a GM or adventure designer or game designer needs to use it. Class abilities can be written around it – “Defensive Strike: if your melee attack hits, you gain a bonus to your AC equal to the margin of success until the start of your next turn” – encounters and adventures can be written to incorporate it – “if the party succeeds in interacting with the Guard via persuasion, intimidation, deception, or any other mean, use the margin of success with the following table to determine what information he gives” – and other game mechanics could be rolled into it to simplify the game as a whole – “if the attack hits, the margin of success determines the base damage and then the character adds their Strength modifier to melee damage or their Dexterity modifier to ranged damage.”
I’m not suggesting this as a rules hack or anything. Again, my point isn’t to bash D&D. My point is about building broad, general rules that are easy to remember and intuitive to apply, but which also have useful levers to pull that allow game designers and GMs and adventure designers lots of different ways to use those mechanics to create interesting content without having to completely rewrite, delete, or add to the rules.
And that brings me around to the fourth trick. Paring it down to the memorable.
Simplify… and DIY
So, once you have a general rule that’s intuitive and easy and remember and that offers a good number of levers to pull and it seems to be doing its job, the last step is to then pare it down to the simplest general rule that still does the job. That way, it’s easy to grasp and easy for the players to keep in their heads and use at the table without having to look it up. And this brings me back around to the Tension Pool. And why it has gradually lost all of its bells and whistles and been scaled down to something that can be described in a paragraph.
See, these days, my design philosophy has changed. As much as I like fiddly bits and D&D has plenty of places where it needs some fiddle, I’m more interested – for some reason – in broad, general mechanics that would all work well together if they were sitting in a GM’s or adventure designer’s or game designer’s head. You know, a pile of broad mechanics that would work really well as a game system of their own. I don’t know why that is.
And that means that instead of designing fun, fiddly systems with lots of moving parts that I can use to run my own personal games because it’s easy for me to keep systems I designed in my own head, I’m trying to design systems that anyone can use with a minimum of effort or understanding, but which still offer a lot of versatility.
What you have to remember about the Tension Pool is that it’s not really a system for the GM. It’s a system for the players. At least, it’s a system for the players to see. It gives the GM the ability to differentiate player actions in a new way – quick and bold versus time-consuming and deliberate – which allows the players’ action choices to influence the game in another way. And it gives the players information with which to make choices – how much time they are wasting and how long it’s been since things last blew up – which enhances their choices. The GM has just two levers to play with with the Tension Pool. First, the GM decides what the pool represents in a given scene – the passage of time, the growing impatience of an NPC, the increasing likelihood of disaster in a dangerous situation, whatever – and second, the GM decides what to do with the Tension Pool with each action – add a die, roll the pool, add a die and roll the pool, or nothing at all.
But the Tension Pool system works in tandem with another system. One I haven’t written about or really addressed at all. That’s the Complication System. In other words, it’s the list of things that can happen when the Tension Pool delivers a Complication. And that is extremely versatile. There’s a lot of levers in that because it’s so open-ended. And probably, I should write about it.
All of that said, I’m not angry with anyone who has left comments about changing the size of the dice or using colored dice or expanding the pool or changing the rules or combining it with other mechanics or running multiple pools in tandem. Here’s the thing: this is a DIY hobby. And creative GMs and game designers and adventure designers will ALWAYS find ways to fiddle with the game mechanics. And it’s a sign of a good, versatile mechanic that many people can see all sorts of other possible ways to use and expand the mechanic. Because that means the mechanic itself spurs creativity. It’s powerful and it’s versatile. It’s expansive. It has room to grow. Which means it’s been pared down well. By itself, it works perfectly well. Well enough that people want to use it more and they want to explore it. But it also has a lot of untapped potential for other people to discover.
I ain’t bragging here. I mean, I could. I am brilliant. But no one needs to be told I’m brilliant. I’m actually just explaining myself to all the people who keep asking me why I don’t expand the Tension Pool. Or who ask why I seem to keep making simpler and simpler. Why I keep removing elements. Now you know. Because I have bigger plans for it than just hacking over one of D&D’s many problems with it.
I’m also explaining to find out if people want to hear more about the Complication side of things and how to use Complications in various encounters and adventures.
And finally, I’m also explaining so that, next week, when I tell you how I’ve been handling NPC Morale in 5E and that turns out to be a very simple system with a lot of room to tinker and fiddle, well, now you’ll know why I did it that way.
This is a worthy design goal. A lot of D&D is the way it is because it’s been patches slapped on patches.
I think the fiddly bits help immersion–different sized dice or different areas-of-effect make an “ice knife” feel different than a “fire bolt”, even if the math of d8 vs d6+1 doesn’t make much difference, or if it makes much sense that a fireball is a sphere while an ice storm is a cube or whatever.
It also creates a minigame of tactical choices in what spells to take or use.
But that should be added back in at the end, in ways that FEEL different but don’t make much math difference.
I am going to slightly disagree with you on immersion here John, I find that changing the damage dice doesn’t really make an ice knife feel different from a fire bolt. What makes it feel different in play to me is the description and ‘effects’ – summoning the ice knife puts a chill in the room and you can see your breath (also damage is ‘cold’ vs resistances, etc.) while a firebolt singes the opponents clothes, ugh the awefull acrid sent of burnt hair fills the room ( also ‘fire’ damage to resistances, etc.).
These are descriptive elements easily added and understood by the damage type or even just name of the spell (ice knife vs fire knife vs lightning knife are all identical spells damage dice wise but VERY different when described in application).
But, that’s just my 2 cents.
Maybe I’m saying this backwards. If “ice knife” and “fire bolt” both do d6 damage on a failed Reflex save, and that’s all they do, they’re the same spell. If you don’t want them to have important non-HP damage effects, then having one do d6+1 and one do d8 camoflauges their sameness, a little bit.
Mutants and Masterminds have a really cool system for this that I wish more RPGs would use – basically, there are no specific spells/powers/etc. but players get to create their own by picking effects and effect modifiers (using a point-buy system) and let them determine the more flavorful aspects of it (Appearance, nature, etc). A simple Damage + Range effect for instance can be a fire bolt, an eye laser, a rifle burst, a standard bow attack, a thrown blade, etc. They all use the same rules for ranged damage, but the result is that two mechanically identical characters will feel extremely different.
Applying this to D&D, we could imagine having a base “Damage cantrip” that deals d8 damage, can choose from any elemental damage type and can have one additional effect from a list (Bigger dice, slow, prevents healing, etc) which the player then gets to customize. How cool would it be for players to be basically creating and naming Wizard spells instead of always using those that already exist ?
Mages in Monte Cook’s World of Darkness work that way.
Ars Magica works perfectly this way. action types (create, destroy, etc) + material affected (Fire, water, body, etc) and the spell is ready on the fly
What it adds is depth. The question is if it’s worth the complexity added. Because though it seems simple, which side of a cube is it’s point of origin? I know the answer, but only from years of playing and from having to look it up a few times. That’s a small detail you have to know. What is the size of the shape, is it a radius or a diameter, does it originate from you or from a point, does it target a point or an object or a creature, is that object one that someone is holding.
If these types of rules were simplified and codified, like “A cone is 30 ft long and half as wide and originates from the caster” and a spell does 1 dice of dmg per level of the spell, then it becomes much easier to write and reference on your sheet.
Maybe something like:
Spell: Burning Hands
d6|Fire|Cone|Ignites
Spell: Cone of Cold
d8|Cold|Cone| – |
Spell: Fear
– | – | Cone | Frightened
I don’t know. I agree that it adds a level of depth. But I also thinks there are ways to get there without the complexity. Alternatively, you can shift the depth to other decisions, even if you simplify damage done, for example.
Does it really add depth though? Does it always? Depth is the number of ways things could play out based on the different possible decisions. All else being equal, choosing between a spell that deals 1d6 damage to one target or deals 1d8 to one target does not add depth. The number of times that extra 1 HP on average actually changes the game is vanishingly small. And D&D has moved away from having damage types having a substantial impact. There are far fewer creatures with vulnerabilities, resistances, and immunities than in 3.5E or 4E because they wanted everyone to absolutely always be equally as effective. That’s also why there’s no monsters immune to crits or sneak attacks anymore and few creatures that resist one type of melee damage over another.
So, what you’re down to is the riders on the effects. Ray of Frost slows, Firebolt does slightly more damage, that kind of thing. And those things do add some strategic depth. But there are SO MANY spells that are just about deal damage to targets without riders and SO MANY of the riders are small and situational that the tactical decisions make themselves. It becomes about calculations rather than choices. So the depth gets buried. The question then is whether it’s worth having the dozens and dozens of spells that deal damage at slightly different ranges or slightly different numbers of targets or slightly different areas.
Remember, depth isn’t just about adding options. It’s that the options lead to frequent, meaningful, substantial differences.
“Depth” isn’t my reason here. Tactically, the difference between d8 and d6+1 ad 2d4 are trivial, and mathematically, increasing a damage die and adding +1 are basically equivalent.
But they help the fiction, they help immersion–rolling different sized dice and doing different pre-K math helps the spells (and weapons) to feel different in play.
Although we’ve stopped bothering with d6+1/d8/2d4 weapons.
The riders, or secondary effects, do a much better job of making the spells feel different anyway. The different damage dice are just to tweak for a bit of balance between different strengths of secondary effects.
I’m not aiming at “bookless” or paperless, so including “3d10” or “6d6” or “4d10” in the 3rd level area-effect spell description isn’t a hardship.
I don’t disagree John, but I think we all have to ponder what we’re sacrificing for this “depth” or “immersion” or whatever gain you think you’re getting from 1d6 vs 1d8 damage spells.
So yes, I’m sacrificing some form of variety by saying “all spells deal some number of d6 damage,” but I’m also gaining simplicity. If all players know that a 8-die fireball deals 8d6 and a 10-die cone of cold deals 10d6 and a 4-die magic missile deals 4d6 without looking anything up – it saves tons of time and even encourages more people to play spellcasters.
Everything you do or don’t do with a system sacrifices one thing to gain another. The question always is, “Is this worth it?”
This is to jasoncohoon, if Angry doesn’t mind.
What I want to gain: different damage types feel different in play.
You can do this by area-of-effect (fireball vs cone of cold vs lightning bolt),
you can do this by math tricks (d6+1 vs d8 vs 2d4)
or, the best way, you can add different rider effects (catch fire, slow or clumsy, chain lightning).
Some logical, thematic rider effects are a lot better than others (acid splashes, fire catches fire, electricity jumps), so I tweak the damage dice up or down for balance.
Examples: 1st level acid attack = d4, 5′ radius, fire attack = d8 plus d6 or spend action, lightning attack = d6, jumps to random target until someone saves. Acid splash is going to hit multiple targets, lightning MAY hit multiple targets, fire MAY do extra damage to one target, or cost the target an action. So I tweak lightning down, and acid WAY down.
I”m not committed to using 6d6 vs 5d8 vs 4d10 for 3rd level area-of-effect spells, but I don’t think “6d6 vs 5d8 vs 4d10” is the same level of slowdown as, say, 5E Guiding Bolt, where the rider is “the next attack roll made against this target before the end of your next turn has advantage”. So that’s an attack roll *AGAINST* the target, not BY the target. And it *EXPIRES* at the end of your next turn. And it’s *AN* attack roll, not ALL attack rolls for the round. And (AFAIK) there are no other spells that follow that same set of conditions, tracking 3 tags to properly give advantage to one attack against the target.
I like this comment. In fact, you could expand it to an article.
My preference is for consistent and significant mechanical differences to provide both flavor and tactical depth, even if that means fewer options.
Maybe you have only one single target ranged damage spell in the game–energy bolt. But you can cast it in four different flavors, each with a rider that has a significant impact. If that impact is too game breaking, tie it to critical hits or your margin of success.
I really like this. Combining effects with spells feels creative at the table in a way that choosing a spell doesn’t, while generating very similar results. It also dramatically reduces the number of spells required, provided the effects are general enough.
This stuff about D&D deliberately reducing the number of vulnerabilities and weaknesses is interesting. From your tone, I presume you don’t believe this was a good decision. Might as well chance my arm and request a future article on how you might handle this if you were, hypothetically, designing an RPG from scratch?
Personally, I was slightly disappointed when I realised the only difference between many monsters would be how I played them. I expected the majority of monsters to have specific weaknesses, double weaknesses, resistances and immunities, rather than simply resistance against non-magical weapons.
I appreciate that the intent was presumably to tone down the number of specific rules for combat, but this does feel like it loses considerable depth.
For that matter, damage types don’t usually matter, and spells are the only way to access a lot of them. Nonmagical weapon attacks are bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing almost always, whereas there are 10 other damage types that are dealt by magical items or spells. Most of the time, none of those types matter, but they have to be kept in the head. They could be summarized generally as physical, elemental, arcane, or spiritual.
My actual approach is to key each damage type to a secondary effect, with a second save.
Fail both saves against a fire spell, you’ve caught on fire–on your turn, either spend your move action to put yourself out, or take another d6 of damage. Cold spell, you’re partially frozen–lose either your move or standard action. Sonic/Thunder spells knock you down. Acid spells splash onto nearby targets, electricity/lightning spells jump randomly to nearby targets. Holy does double damage to [Evil] tagged creatures.
Some of these are better than others, which means you tweak the damage die up or down. That gives me my damage-dealing spells for an entire E6 spell list.
40 spells (8 elements * 5 gradations)
Finger of X (Cantrip) D4-1 damage, Repeat each round, new attack new save
Elemental Weapon: (1st) Increase dmg die twice, weapon dmg is (element) dmg, 1 minute
Elemental Strike (1st) Instantaneous, 1 target. Save for half damge, secondary effects
Fist of X (2nd): Concentration, as Elemental Strike, 1 target per round.
Elemental Storm: (3rd) Area of effect. Save for half damage, secondary effects.
I wrote it in a table, but the comment section format doesn’t support. But you get the idea.
If anybody cares to see it….
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sVZDs4fA34kU84vtPJj2updUfy0TAXvmc1ay5cCQvPE/edit?usp=sharing
Yes, please do an article on Complications, I’d like to see some of your thought process on it. The Tension Pool is a cool mechanic and I’ve been trying to layer it into my games.
Second this!
The motion carries!
Bring on the Complications!
+1 from me, yeah.
I concur
I hope it’ll come out soon! Though I have a feeling making the article will be quite… complicated.
I’ll see myself out.
“See, these days, my design philosophy has changed. As much as I like fiddly bits and D&D has plenty of places where it needs some fiddle, I’m more interested – for some reason – in broad, general mechanics that would all work well together if they were sitting in a GM’s or adventure designer’s or game designer’s head. You know, a pile of broad mechanics that would work really well as a game system of their own. I don’t know why that is.”
You can’t put in a paragraph like that and then NOT expect us to speculate about the angry RPG.
Patches on patches is one way to think about it–and the original “software” was buggy, hacked together, and seriously limited by technical constraints. Think about how you’d design or playtest before the Internet.
But I think the real issue here is a product issue. Most players and DMs will suck, since most everyone sucks at everything, especially when they’re getting started or they have Other Life Stuff to Do. All these systems have become a way to cover for that suckage. You can rely on mechanics if you’re not a very good DM or player. It’s also a great way to play with strangers, which is absolutely necessary from WOTC’s standpoint if the game is to grow. (If you’re old like me, you know that this “common ground” was one of Gygax’s hugest rant topics, and the #1 driver behind the creation of 1e. Check out Dragons from the early 1980s as well as 1e itself. 0e was so loose that local games were usually house-ruled to the point of mutual incompatibility, one side effect of not including enough systems. Bad news if you want to have cons and tournaments and, you know, a company.)
So I guess I would say that the point of simplified systems is a highly mature one. Angry, your tension pool is a tool to bring about the desired design result you have…not itself a desired design result. So, no, you don’t need d10s and d4s and God knows what else. But the idea that you see it that way is also a sign of deep experience. Too many players and DMs mistake the systems and rules for the end goal. This may be endemic to the form itself, I think after 40 years of play and ~15 years of professional design research experience.
I just used the tension pool in last night’s session, to good effect. I’d also like to read your input on how to determine relevant Complications, and how to be creative with them. That was the piece I had to give the most thought to for this session.
Huh, a system I am writing uses margin as you described pretty much verbatim… Reading your articles must have rubbed off enough for me to come up with that separately from you. I have the same approach to that game codified in it – broad general rules.
Your dreams sounds similar to my understanding of how the Fate system works.
Yeah, but in my dream, the game doesn’t suck.
I’m asking you to say why, in your judgement, Fate sucks. Specifically, if you will, what parts of Fate suck?
Yes, I know you have refused to say why in the past.
I’ve never run/played Fate, but I’m using the fudge dice system for a RPG I’m developing for a specific underserved market. I like the dice as its just not as swingy as the d20.
No. First of all, I’ve explained on numerous occasions why Fate sucks. Factually, by the way. Not just in my opinion. Fate provably, factually, axiomatically sucks. And I don’t feel like going through it again.
Second of all, every time someone asks me to explain my “opinion” – even the factual ones like this one – it’s just a prelude to them trying to prove me wrong. Which is dumb. Because I’m never wrong. But the arguments are tiresome. And boring. So I know how this will go. I will enumerate the reasons why Fate sucks in clear, concise, rational detail. And then you will crap some sort of “counteragument” all over it and then blow an airhorn and run away with your hands in the air like you won something. And if I explain why your counterargument is wrong, you’ll repeat it in different words and then tell me I’m closed-minded because that is the only possible reason why I don’t agree with you.
Third of all, why do you even care. If you like Fate and are okay playing, running, and hacking sucky games, then you should just keep right on doing that. I’m just some asshole on the Internet. Best case scenario is that you don’t agree with anything I say and then we have the argument I alluded to in the second paragraph until I get bored and tell you to get lost. Worst case scenario is I actually convince you that Fate does, indeed, suck. And then I’ve ruined the game for you. And I’m too nice a guy to do something like that to you.
I feel like the spirit of this comment could be applied to almost every disagreement on the internet. Well said.
I’d be interested in your take on Complications, and whether you tend to lean towards hard or soft planning them :).
As I gain more and more GM experience I am seeing the same thing Angry, the fiddly bits seem to detract from the game more than add to it – complexity without benefit. I always seem to start adding patches and additional rules, designing and testing out the mechanics on my own, but when it comes to bringing it in to play I stop short when I ask myself is this REALLY adding to everyone’s fun or is it just extra busywork for myself to keep track of?
In reading your rules breakdown the only thing I would add is declaring the DC is known by the players before rolling – this has been stated by you in previous articles but it is a point that I find is worth repeating here.
Anyways, wonderful article and I for one would be interested to hear your take on Complications with the Tension Pool System.
Regarding spells complexity in 5e, Shadow of the Demon Lord offers a great example of how it can be pared down.
Oh man, do I want an article on Complications! I’ve been using your Tension Pool since I read about it, but I have been struggling to come up with better complications than just combat encounters, especially during exploration/travel.
If time matters during travel (and why wouldn’t it?), you can futz with it. The wheel of the trade cart breaks. The horse dies, or gets sick from pushing too hard. The party gets sick (they must rest or become exhausted). A possibly nefarious NPC tells the party about treasure a half-day’s journey away. Or that a nearby town is being attacked. The bridge to cross the river was washed away and they need to find an alternate route, or somehow get the horses and the cart across (or abandon them, or… etc). The NPC they’re escorting loses morale. The depleted-but-not-too-depleted unubtonium they’re transporting sinks one step closer to too-depleted. Just some of my ideas.
Just play Oregon Trail
Speaking of Oregon Trail this would be a great place to throw in illness. And NPC’s losing morale is a nice one I hadn’t considered before.
I run Savage Worlds so I use a deck of cards and get a player to pick a card, any card. Still refining the results a bit but it basically breaks down by suit with Clubs being probable combat, Diamonds being equipment issues (the game contains an equipment condition factor), Spades being probable non-combat event, and Hearts being character specific complications with the specific card being an indicator of the degree of the complication.
Or I just ignore the card and throw whatever the hell I want at them, whichever is more convenient at the time.
Of course, Angry’s points about spells being easier to remember if they do similar things if partially fixed in SW’s magic system. Bolt does 2d6 damage whether you call it magic missile, ice bolt, fire dart, or however you want to trap it. The broad rules a big part of the power of Savage Worlds.
This felt like I was reading the Fudge system guide again. Not a bad thing, just surprising.
Going from BECMI -> 1E -> 2E -> HM -> 3E -> 5E I have to say I have gone from the simple, to the complex, to the overly complex, and now back to simple regarding rules complications.
Back in my teens (1E) I could certainly keep an entire adventure and relevant rules in my head while DMing, not so much 30 years later. I just started running 5E and I have to say it does a really good job of simplifying the game mechanics and making them easy to remember or even guess at when unsure.
Spells can be complicated (for sure) but what would be the point if Burning Hands, Shocking Grasp, and Ray of Frost all followed the same exact mechanics? If every level X offensive spell did (Xd6+X) damage with no specific effects you would quickly have a very boring (yet simple) game.
Granted I have not run a ton of 5E yet but my players have been taking into account the difference between Burning Hands (ignite flammables) and Shocking Grasp (bonus vs metal armor) and using the best spell for the encounter. It would suck if those spells did the same thing but only had different names.
The core of 5E is very simple: d20. Everything is basically an opposed role, either to a static number or a random one with a modifier. That is pretty much it. As long as you know that anything the players want to do comes down to a simple roll of a d20. Probably 99% of the stuff players want to do falls under that and the remaining 1% should be prepped ahead of time by the DM.
I just started running 5E and the only thing I have had to reference the books for has been monster specific information or issues where my brain goes to 1E rules and I am not certain if I am right or not. That and those awesome spell cards. Those are worth every penny!!!
In closing, 5E is as close to a “don’t need the books” system as there is among mass market TTRPGs. The only one I can think of where you legit do not need any books is Dread, which uses a Jenga tower to resolve everything.
This isn’t a complaint about you specifically, but I’m only a few comments in and this “Why would you get rid of [specific problematic feature] when that would cause [completely unrelated and obviously bad-faith result]” is already played out.
If YOU were to format a system for magic that adhered to Angry’s goals, while keeping significant differences between elemental spells, how would YOU do it?
I would start by asking him for a clear and concise document laying out the things he would (and would not) want in said magic system. Then I would ask follow up questions and brainstorm with him to figure out what would actually work.
At this time I do not possess a clear enough picture of what he wants from a magic system.
I, too, recently used the Tension pool. I didn’t explain it. I got a bowl, and started dropping dice in it at the appropriate time. It made the players nervous.
Mage: The Ascension had a mechanic like this. You had dice pools for powering your magic, and dice pools for the ten different kinds of magic. You could mix and match the pools to produce different ‘spells’. Some spells were ‘written down’, and uses specific formulas of kinds of dice pools, but the majority of the game was ‘think of an effect, decide which pools produce that effect, roll vs. difficulty’. The mechanic was the same for resolving combat, damage, or magic. Counterspell/antimagic/resistance was a lot easier to use as well, as you could roll your dice pool vs. the caster’s dice pool, to remove successes v. difficulty.
Calculating odds was hell.
It was rather clunky in practice, but it gets to the idea of what you’re thinking of re: a more general rule.
The trouble with spell components in D&D is that it is trying to emulate several different conceptions of magic. The Witch who needs the eye of Newt. Gandalf channeling power through his staff. The sorcerer who spontaneously taps into energy. etc. Possibly with game balance considerations thrown in, maybe.
The canny game designer might simplify this and move it to an optional system that also ties into his crafting system. Expend a [fire] component when casting a [fire] spell to roll an extra dice of effect.
And simplifying all the action resolution aspects of spells was one thing 4E got right. You almost always roll against one specific stat. But magic users wanted to feel special.
My solution (inspired because Occult Adventures ruined spellcasting in Pathfinder) is to say all spells require verbal and somatic components. That’s it. Nothing else to remember (unless there is an expensive material component required for balance purposes).
Most caster classes then have a way they can substitute one of those components (their choice) when they cast the spell:
* Wizards can use inexpensive material components of an arcane flavour.
* Clerics and Paladins can present their holy symbol.
* Druids can focus on their mistletoe.
* Rangers can use inexpensive material components of a natural flavour.
* Sorcerers can focus on their bloodline.
* Psychic classes can take a moment to clear their mind.
* Bards can use a performance.
As a hack it isn’t perfect. But for me it works better then the flavour we ended up getting with pathfinder spellcasting which is “a magical aura that everyone can always notice regardless of their training or light conditions erupts around the spellcaster”.
Yes, I would like to hear about the complication system.
A lot of what you proposed for spells sounds like Savage Worlds. In it there are a variety of basic spells (which could also be superpowers, or psionic abilities, or weird science gadgets, or whatever, since its a generic setting). These powers have the basic effects, which players can then modify with “trappings” when they get them.
So for instance, a “Bolt” spell on its own is just a ranged attack that does damage. However one player’s “bolt” might be a lightning bolt spell, which logically does whatever a lightning bolt would do for those niche cases where it would matter. (So for instance it’ll probably do more damage if your target’s standing in water, and you could probably use it on an depowered machine to get it to run for a few seconds. Meanwhile some other dude might have a bolt where he throws fire around (so less useful if you’re trying to use it on a guy in water, but it could also probably ignite some flammable stuff.)
It’s an elegant system in my opinion, but it’s also something that I feel irks a lot of people (it certainly irked me more than a little when I first saw it). People like variety after all, and making powers generic can feel like you’re stripping away the flavor of the game. But I think that’s worth it for the sake of improving the skeleton and streamlining the experience. After all, RPGs are already about making piles of numbers into fun experiences.
Yeah, Angry has explained why he doesn’t run Dungeon World and I get it, but I really like that it checks the “never need to look at the rule book” box. I’m pretty sure three out of my four players have never even looked at anything besides the move sheet and their characters, and I don’t bring the book to sessions any more.
Quick note about the margin of success concept,
2nd Edition Pathfinder has the concept with their degrees of success. 10 above or below the DC gives a “critical success” or “critical failure”. Like your concept its simple and easy to remember and allow a lot more levers to pull. Spells have different effect based on the degreee of success, some martial abilities occur when an enemy critically fails an attack. So one now published exampled of the margin of success.
It doesn’t allow a lot more levers then Angry’s system. Because the choice has moved from a binary outcome to 4 outcomes. Now for a lot of things that could definitely be good enough (and even in PF2e some things are still binary or they have 3 outcomes). Angry’s proposed solution has as many outcomes as required by the situation. I expect most things will still have 2 outcomes. But if the situation calls for it (and this would likely be in the adventure rather than a blanket rule) there can be more than 2 outcomes.
Are you still only rolling a 1d20? Seems to me that it’s impossible for both critical success and critical failure to be on the table for a given role. An interesting choice.
1 and 20 are still automatic critical (unless your modifier is obscenely higher or lower then the DC).
The one thing mentioned that I really, really don’t like is the ‘margin of success’ and ‘margin of failure’ mechanic. I know these rules by themselves are not the point of this BS-article (to which philosophy I agree wholeheartedly, amen), but I really felt like mentioning this because this mechanic is getting more and more prominent nowadays, and are a major part of Pathfinder 2.
Some time ago, you wrote another BS-article titled Acting on the Edge of Your Seat. There, you talked about the pacing curve present in every action: the usual incitement, rising action, climax, resolution. And since then I’ve been making this pacing curve ever more explicit in the action resolution of my games to amazing results. As you said in that article, this was “a good design goal. And [your] intuition is pretty good.”
People often berate the binary resolution of D&D as old, and how newer designs adopt some kind of degrees of success. But the way I see this mechanic implemented, usually makes it less satisfying: In D&D, you instantly know if you succeeded or failed as soon as the dice stops, and this has an amazing feeling that incites cheers at the table. But with ‘margin of success/failure’, while you can also instantly know if you succeeded or failed, there is an extra step after that that dilutes the climax.
In Pathfinder 2, critical hits hinge on this mechanic, making them much less satisfying then that natural 20 showing up. Damage based on ‘margin of success’ also has this characteristic: a success don’t feel as good, because most of the time it was not a “great success”. Damage dice, while slower, allows for a success climax (even if followed by frustration in the damage roll).
Well, that was me rumbling.
I just wanted to put this pet peeve of mine out there.
The flaw in Pathfinder 2 vs Angry’s proposed solution is that the critical nature of succeeding and failing rests in the hands of the player’s rather than in the hands of the GM. By having more outcomes that are possible for every action, you require more rules to be remembered.
I believe there’s a PF2e feat that lets you make 5 recall knowledge checks with 1 action. That’s rolling 5d20, adding bonuses to each d20 and then telling the GM what each result is and the GM adjudicating the result of that specific roll.
Angry’s solution would be (well, pretending Angry uses recall knowledge checks instead of simply giving the information to the PC based on their modifier) would be 1 roll and if you get the DC the adventure tells the GM what knowledge that player. If they beat the DC by 2 the adventure tells the GM what additional knowledge that player learns, etc, etc.
Gradations of success aren’t new in Pathfinder. That’s why every time there was a “gather information” table in a PF adventure it often had multiple pieces of information based on how high they rolled. That’s all gradations of success or failure mean. It’s a GM mechanic, not a player facing mechanic. PF2e’s critical success and failure is a player facing mechanic due to how it ties in with so many different abilities.
Gotta disagree with you there: my experience is that having the margin makes the climax better, either it’s low and you get that rush from having narrowly avoided disaster, or its high and you get that feeling of smashing the homerun for greater success
That’s also why I hate damage dice (for the same reason you like them); how well the character attacked has no relation to how much damage you do (classic example is the crit that doubles a damage roll of 1, such a deflated feeling)
Lastly you still get a critical success on a 20, so you’re not missing out by including a margin of success on the other rolls (I agree that rolling the max on a check is uniquely satisfying)
Delving a little deeper in the subject, in my eyes most rolls can be grouped into two different kinds: the resolution rolls and the resource rolls.
Resolution rolls determine if an action succeeds or fails. These are the rolls that “tell a story”, and the ones where the pacing curve applies to. If you can manage to abstract resources away, you can play the whole game in an engaging way using only these kind of rolls (not that the game will reach its full potential though).
Resource rolls determine how much amplitude, how much impact you have on a resource pool. The most usual resource pool is HP and consumables, but these resources could also be the amount of knowledge available on something (as John Lynch exemplified), or even the amount of success you have access to (a.k.a. degrees of success). Many times, this roll is even replaced by a static number, like static damage or the skill modifier in the knowledge example.
The ‘margin of success’ and ‘margin of failure’ mechanic combine these two kinds of rolls into a single die roll. It’s perfectly doable and speeds up play in many situations. But sometimes it does so at a cost: the resource part of the roll makes the pacing curve of the resolution part blander and less fullfilling. The roll doesn’t reach “peak emotion”.
It doesn’t happen all the time but, as I see it, it’s a cost game designers have to keep in mind.
The tension pool is a good example of something that is very simple and intuitive, while at the same time accomplishing a LOT of things you want in your game. It adds a lot of ‘depth’ to decisions without being complex – Which is exactly what makes it so elegant. You can add specific things (like colored dice etc) if you want, but it works very well without that.
Coming up with simple, intuitive but effective/versatile game mechanics is what makes game design hard. Sadly, too many game designers seem to think that making their game ‘better’ means adding more specific rules. While that has its place, in many cases I think adding new general rules (or improving the existing ones) would be better.
I am really hoping your game will use the philosophy you’re describing here Angry.
Oh, and looking forward to the ‘complications’ article! 🙂
Weirdly, the first game I ever ran was a very simple (but not particularly balanced) version of the Frostgrave skirmish game modified to work as an RPG. To some point it had the margin of success idea in it, which of course I was too new to see why I liked it. In any case, I am very excited to see what the angry RPG ends up as. I think these last articles talking about simplicity vs complexity and broad game design have been my favorites.
There is a huge need for improved formatting in 5e for spells.
Why must I search for the ability used for the save? Why isn’t that piece of information as important as the time to cast? WotC consistently misunderstands how their product is used or refuses to make changes that make it easier to use.
5th edition will not get any meaningful changes to it. Everything has to be balanced against the core assumptions in the PHB and that includes layout. Only when 6th edition comes along will these sort of structural changes take place. Theyre not going to introduce a new edition until 5th ed stops selling as well as it does. And their anemic publishing model maximises profit and minimises work which means 5th edition could be around for a very long time.
I have a recommendation.
First, your design philosophy seems to be doing what I hoped it would. It reminded me of another game that my group discovered that uses a similar design philosophy and is the best designed game we have found over 15 years of gaming.
It is NOT a fantasy adventure game, and due to the previous versions of the game I think your natural response will be to recoil and ignore my recommendation, but I think it would be worth your time to spend a few evenings reading the core rules. The game is Chronicle’s of Darkness second edition. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/168428/Chronicles-of-Darkness?term=chronicles+of+
Its always so funny to me to watch you describe the dream system, and effectively just rehash a lot of the unique things 4e did. Not that I think 4e was perfect by any means, but its so clear to me that they were at least *trying* to simplify the game with choices like that.
I definitely think 4e gets a lot more hate than it deserves, especially online.
It’s always so funny to me that when I speculate like this, I get all these comments where everyone sees their own favorite system in what I’m saying. Already, this shit is Fate, Savage Worlds, and D&D 4E. And every other thing I write is Blades in the Fucking Dark. And if I never hear about that crap of a hack of a hack again, it’ll be too soon.
This makes me think of the inherent push-and-pull that exists between the crunchy mechanical parts of the game and the roleplaying aspects. On the one hand, I really like level 1 in 5e with a bunch of new players which is when. as a DM, I can just do that simple flow of presenting the scene and asking “what do you do?!” and the player responds in basic English and I just adjudicate even in combat (I tell them to make an attack roll instead of them just saying they attack and make the roll). On the other hand, I also really like rules with crunchy fiddly bits like in the new Pathfinder edition or higher level 5e, where combat’s like a video game or board game and the player can just pick and choose what actions they’re using. That’s fun too, but it also sometimes feels really constraining compared to “low-level” close-to-the-metal play (to borrow a computer programming saying. In this case the “adjudication cycle” is the metal).
Well yes! I would very much like to get some advice on Complications from you, Angry.
Oh man, I never thought of using the tension pool on the encounter level.
Ugh, that’s so useful. I wish I could GM right now to try that out! Argh! It could have made things so much easier!
Are you… are you doing for spells what 3e did for skills? Hallelujah, amen!
Hear, Hear! Levers with real difference when pulled (or pushed), actions which have results and consequences, and adjudication like a boss!!!
A thought about levers to pull when a GM comes up with a check. Any group is going to have two d10s, because you can use them for d100 rolls. All dice packs have them nowadays. You could add the possibility of rolling 2d10s and adding the results rather than a d20 roll. I feel its a pretty good basic modification to the base roll – it still works in tandem with any other lever, and not a hard rule to remember. A player can easily say, “Hey, can I try to attack this goblin as safely as possible?”, and the GM can let them do a roll with a better chance of something rolling in the middle, at the cost of a much lower chance of getting a crit. I don’t know if its what you’re looking for, but it feels like a simple but versatile lever to me.
Assuming you haven’t seen them before, both Open Legend and some OSR systems try to tackle some of these issues. Open Legend is built on a core mechanic (d20+attribute dice against a DC) and encourages a basic ‘margin of success’ aspect.
OSR systems, most notably the GLOG (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j0y6h2XXnfJS-mJRF_-0MknSazNNAij4/view), are built on ‘rulings not rules’ and the ability to keep your whole system in your head. Core rules are small and simple, everything is else is flavor.
While I agree with your philosophy and would probably design a purely hypothetical RPG based on the same priniciples you would, I think there really might be a reason why 5e spells (and rules in general) are made in this perculiar, weirdly specific way.
> For example, why do some spells require ability checks and some spells require attack rolls and some spells require nothing? There’s nothing else in the game that does that.
My guess would be this: specific information is a space for players to explore.
There was 150 original pokemon, and me and my classmates remembered them all. There were implicit rules in pokemon periodic table, but they were rarely spelled out. There were also exceptions to most rules. Just looking at the posters with those little thingies made kid’s brain bubble with theories – there was _knowledge_ there to be discovered, and everybody was hooked on exploration of this weird rule-space.
Sure, you could optimize pokemon rule system by slapping together some generic rules about types, evolutions and relations to real-life animals, which would allow you to easily generate any monster you wish. But, while far more flexible, this system would also suck out the fun of mastering underlying world logic – exactly because you provide this logic explicitly.
The same, I suspect, is the reason why some RPGs use wildly specific collections of exceptions instead of a few robust rules. For some players, I guess, it’s just a cool space to explore. And that’s way getting a pet as a class feature comes with unique package of new mechanics you have to learn – exactly because exploring new stuff is exciting, while getting just another generic sidekick/bodyguard/summon resource wouldn’t be as rewarding.
Some games manage to achieve both simplicity and engaging exploration (Ars Magicka, for example), but most just choose one or another. Some system also tend to offload “exploration space” constructing on GM (Blades in the Dark does that a lot), while 5e provides the space right from the box (which I’d consider a useful feature for new players, at least in theory – although it also comes with drawbacks).
So, this huge heap of exceptions can be unwieldy and tedious to work with, but I think it might have a very important puprose. So if you’re going to throw it out, you’d have to make sure to fulfill this purpose in some other way.
I don’t really agree regarding Pokemon’s first generation. There were 150 Pokemon, sure, but they all had only one or two types, which you could usually somewhat infer from how the Pokemon looked. Poison Pokemon tend to be purple or spiky, Fire Pokemon were usually on fire, etc. There was an internal logic to the visual design that meant you didn’t really need to memorize their types, most of the time. That way, you could look at a Pokemon, see that it looks like a fish, and use an electric-type attack on it, confident that it would probably be weak to it.
Pokemon could usually only learn moves that matched one of its types, most moves fell into one of only a few categories, moves of a certain type usually shared certain traits… there was a lot there that you didn’t really need to memorize. You could see a move you’d never seen before, like Thunder, and say “well, it clearly involves electricity, so it’s probably Electric-type”, and you’d know quite a lot about it just from that. There were exceptions to these rules, as always, but most moves followed them. I feel like it’s actually a not-terrible example of what Angry was talking about. It’s a more-easily-remembered system than 5e’s spells, at least.
And also, in basic gameplay, you had a hard limit of six Pokémon in your roster. Six is easy to get to know. Outside of the normal gameplay loop, when decisions don’t need to be made quickly, you could refer to the Pokédex. That’s the equivalent of preparing or choosing spells. And, as noted, the Pokémon and their moves are generally very simple. Many moves are repeated. Each Pokémon only has four moves. Another hard limit. And each can be described in a tooltip that’s a single line. And players don’t need to remember the math and the mechanics beyond those general descriptions because a computer is doing it. And everything was based on very general rules that could be learned and were applied over and over. Like the type matchups. There was A LOT limiting what you had to know and how much you had to know about it. At my table, as a GM, for my current group, on spells alone, I have to be prepared to adjudicate about nineteen different spells. At second level. That’s not including feats and character abilities. No two are alike. And only a couple even fall into the deal X damage. Some require concentration, so every time a player takes damage, I have to ask them to make that check. Others don’t. And one of the characters actually has twenty spells available and prepares a shortlist for each day. When she juggles her spells, the list changes.
Yes, tell us more about Complications, please!
I’m looking forward to the complications article, plus the NPC morale one. I was just thinking of asking if you could write and article about making better social encounters. I know you’ve mentioned them in short in a few other articles, but a dedicated article on how to get the most out of them, how to run them so that you don’t say a bunch of stupid stuff that that npc probably wouldn’t have actually said, but without writing lines and lines of dialogue and not be versatile in regards to player interoga- I mean player questions towards the npcs. Any time I run a social encounter (I haven’t had the chance to add the tension pool to one yet) I always end up losing the focus of what the encounter is supposed to be doing. It ends up just being talking. And then the players end up not knowing what they are supposed to do because the goals of the encounter aren’t spelled out well enough, so they try over and over again to strongarm the npc, and I don’t let them, but then I don’t know when to have them make a roll, how many rolls they can make, etc. It just needs a system to keep it formatted, understandable, and mostly, functional. Would love to hear more of your thoughts on this.
Angry sez:
“So, once you have a general rule that’s intuitive and easy and remember and that offers a good number of levers to pull and it seems to be doing its job, the last step is to then pare it down to the simplest general rule that still does the job. That way, it’s easy to grasp and easy for the players to keep in their heads and use at the table without having to look it up. And this brings me back around to the Tension Pool. And why it has gradually lost all of its bells and whistles and been scaled down to something that can be described in a paragraph.”
Now I know why my brain was confused about your last article. I had recently read “Getting There Is Half the Fun” (catching up on my studies), and had your rule about rolling for “Danger” during the Travel Day in mind. Now, from your comment above, I’m guessing that that was streamlined out.
Honestly I think there’s probably more value in limiting the number of spells a character has as opposed to trying to simplify them too much. I mean yeah okay, some standardization here and there won’t hurt, like how 3E had the different range categories for short, medium, long, touch, etc. But when you really get down to spells more interesting than just “deal damage and/or a status”, you kind of need a lot of text. The real problem though is the fact that the GM has to learn a bunch of crap. It’s not bad for sorcerers, because their spells come at a trickle. So it’s not really hard for the DM to learn one new spell every time the sorcerer levels. That’s fine. For wizards you’re looking at two spells each and every level. Twice the work as the sorcerer, but still doable.
The real problem are the divine casters, who for some godawful reason get every single cleric or druid spell in the game available to them. Druids are even worse because they also gain access to a multitude of monsters in the monster manual they can wildshape into, making the potential things you have to know insane. It’s really one of the worst design choices in the game that’s just been carried over from edition to edition because of some dumb tradition. There’s just no way you’ll be able to handle a divine casting class without constantly having to look stuff up. Really, I think you must start with them.
Not where you’d start, but if you want to take the existing games and start hacking:
Religions are big on catechisms, lists, commandments, Eightfold paths.
So there’s plenty of fictional justification to limit your orthodox priests to the Twelve Orthodox Spells of each level, BECMI-style. Add in domain spells for variety and flavor, and bam. (Especially if you have one Deal Damage spell at each level, tweaked by religiously-appropriate elemental damage type).
And you can also limit your players’ MM access by treating Summon Monster (or Wild Shape) as a massive collection of spells, each of which summons/assumes one monster shape.
On margins of success — not sure if you’ve seen it, but Green Ronin’s system for its Game of Thrones licence uses this in several guises, you might want to review it. It has DCs that you roll against even for combat, so the whole idea of the attack roll is redone or dispensed with, and margins of success are factored into it.
I’m not sure why I couldn’t quite get into it, but the mechanics at least might be worth a look.
“It has DCs that you roll against even for combat”
Isn’t that what AC is? An attack roll is just an ability check with the DC set as the target’s AC.
Pretty much, though Green Ronin more or less makes the connection to a DC explicit. Maybe what I was trying to say was that the GoT game doesn’t make attack rolls separate from the skill system – indeed for ranged attacks you roll your Marksmanship skill, for melee it’s either your Fighting skill with a bonus dice if you’re specialised in a given weapon and you’re using that weapon. It doesn’t really differentiate between skill use and combat.
On several occasions I have decided to make my own RPG that does what I want it to do. I have spent dozens, nay, hundreds of hours thinking and making spreadsheets and writing up what I wanted. I always give up at the sheer magnitude of the task, and because I keep getting new ideas and starting over.
But, they were always very much in theme with the things you’ve described here. So I am pretty excited.
Just… i really hope that it only needs d6’s.
Sorry. Dice are fun. But, each player, including the GM, only needs one set of dice apiece. You will never need more than one set of dice and you’ll never need to roll any dice twice. And the table will also need one set of six, six-sided dice.
Of course, everyone can have more dice if they want.
And you won’t even need that percentile bullshit.
Building spell systems is good for more than just HP damage. One of the things I like about E6 is that I can classify effects as Beginner (SL 0-1), Veteran (SL 2), Expert (SL 3).
So we can write up a Persuasion line of spells with target effects
1. Persuasion: Belief. No, these are not the droids we are looking for.
2. Persuasion: Agreement. Sure, you can pay me the rest when we get to Alderaan. I’m sure a lunatci desert hermit has access to that kind of money off planet.
3. Persuasion: Fanatic. Forget your entire life, person I just met yesterday, and join me in my quest across the galaxy.
Just wanted to say, Angry, that I used the Tension pool last night in a session where my party was exploring a dark cave. I forgot to print off your rules for it and it didn’t matter because the Pool is such a simple mechanic. And it worked perfectly. (But you probably knew that would happen.) Anyways, thanks for sharing it, and I’d be interested to read more about Complications.
very excited by the idea of the conflict system. and one idea i would look at as a natural evolution of the margin of success and failure is the critical failure and success system pathfinder 2(and probably many other systems) use, where you get them for being 10 below or 10 above
Reading about that dream, I wonder if you ever tried Legend of the Five Rings, 1 ed. It has nice solutions to some points you mention.
Yeah, another comment like those “That is FATE”. Still, I would like to know.
Each spell has a few available effects.
Each time a spell is cast the spellcaster expends “Focus” and chooses 1 effect to take place.
The spellcaster can instead declare a “charge-up” action, and expend extra “Focus” to guarantee special/critical spell effect as long as the spell goes uninterrupted but moves their turn to the end of the initiative pool for this round – and they caster cannot take reactions without abandoning their charged action.
The spell does not take effect until the casters turn/action ends, and never takes effect if the spell/action was abandoned.
Any other characters can use actions during their turn and/or reactions to try to interrupt or avoid the effects of the spell.
Thats the broad strokes of my current magic system idea.
Neat idea. Mind if I borrow some components of it?
I have been working on something similar called ‘maintaining’ instead of concentration. Most spells give an immediate affect, and then a secondary affect if maintained as something like a bonus action or regular action. Focus sounds good too….
Take it and mutilate it if you want. Once an idea is posted on a free site intended for helping others with game design it’s free game.
Polite of you to ask tho.
In mind magic lets you manipulate mundane things. If you ‘maintain’ something it protects whatever your manipulating from disappearing (if your magically manipulating ice, as long as you channel focus into it the sun will not melt the ice. for fire, water won’t put it out. But once your channeling stops the ice is normal ice and the fire is normal fire. The effects/results are predictable.
I feel like one thing that’s missed in this discussion is that detailed rules and rule books are part of the fun of D&D. I was always the kid that had the rule books open when I played any game and loved getting into the detail and nuance. The fact that there are hundreds of spells I’ll never memorize is a feature, not a bug to me.
The internet D&D community seems to be overrepresented by ex drama people who have decided the game should have drama and excitement every moment. For me and my group, we love playing a game. A role playing game, granted, but the game and the rules and the fiddly bits are part of the point. Stopping to discuss a rule or lookup something doesn’t end up in an awkward moment, it allows for a bit of socializing and side talk while the people involved get it right. And we all have fun the whole time because we are friends playing a game on Saturday night, not actors making a drama on a podcast.
Maybe you enjoy reading through the rulebook and having discussions with your friends, but every moment spent clarifying rules is a moment spent not playing the game.
That sounds like a difference without a distinction. We are amidst a gaming session and having fun. Without exception the implication in discussions like this is that the rules discussion somehow take away from that gaming experience and remove something from the game itself.
My suggestion is just the opposite. The rules discussions are an integral part of what attracts me to this particular game. I *like* complicated rules. I *like* discussions of those rules and how they apply to a particular situation. If somehow that decreases the actual count of moments “playing” the game versus “discussing” the game, as you claim, then my argument is that is not diminishing our experience, but is actually part of what we enjoy about the experience. And that’s the point, right? Certainly not “time spent in game vs out of game” or any other such measurement.
What about people who aren’t you and your group? Are you sure you’re the majority? Even if so, is it possible there are people who don’t enjoy that to the same degree you do? The difference is clear enough to me. Clear enough to write this. And to have garnered support.
Ultimately “well, *I* like it this way is a fair statement, but it’s not a compelling enough argument to change my design philosophy. And all you did was repeat that twice.
And the claim that people who want to minimize the amount of cognitive load the game requirements is just a “loud minority on social media” is going to need something to back it up. Otherwise, this particular line of conversation isn’t very productive. Already it’s just “are not,” “am too.” And it’s only got one exchange.
Oh, I don’t claim a majority, far from it. I also did not mention a loud minority – I did say overrepresented and I stand by that. Online discourse and D&D podcasts by and large are dominated by story first and pro acting gamers. Many of them attest to having a background in at least high school drama (I believe you, yourself have said this?). I don’t have anything to back it but my experience and observations as an outsider coming into the scene a couple of years back and fully immersing myself in the advice / reddit / podcast culture of D&D.
Generally the way I enjoy things is not the way anything like a majority of people enjoy them. Simply pointing out that there is a certain number (1 + n at least) that enjoys this aspect of a hobby with many ways to enjoy it.
I think what you want to do is great and would encourage you to keep at it, as if you need to hear that from me!, and I do not suggest you change your philosophy one bit because of what I like. Hell, I like D&D so I’m fine. Simply offering my (non majority but hopefully still somewhat valid) view point and the thoughts that came to my mind when I read this post. Perhaps subconsciously you’ll add something for people like me into your new game system. Don’t simplify too much!
Cheers.
Sometimes I think D&D wants to feel more confusing and complicated than it really is. The spells definitely feel like trying to collect and decipher the hurried scribblings of a secretive madman. Lumping all the “specific” info together can really trick you into thinking a single spell is a “discrete magical effect”.
That’s why I can’t wait for the Angry RPG, you can actually communicate your ideas!
Complications when? This is good stuff.
Angry, I’ve been chewing on your spitballs and have made a few of my own. Just some ideas for magical effects that I want to throw out to the public. There are a few ideas here. They don’t all work perfectly, and may need some tweaking, but here goes…
Idea 1: The attacker/effect always rolls to hit. Get rid of saving throws. Monster and character stat blocks gets new “Save Class” for the 6 abilities to replace the Saving Throw info. This is calculated as; Save Class = 14 + Ability Mod + Prof. Bonus (if applicable). The attacker rolls to hit against the appropriate Save Class, just like trying to hit against AC. I’ve done the math – the odds are the same as a conventional saving throw.
Which Save Class does a spell target? Depends on damage type. e.g. Fire targets a Dex Save Class. Poison targets a Con Save Class.
Idea 2: Targeted spells are always vs AC and area of effect spells are always a saving throw (or Save Class)
Idea 3: Area of Effect sizes are based on spell level. L1-L2 is small, L3-L5 is medium, L6-L8 is large, and L9 is huge. This also applies if you cast at higher levels.
Idea 4: Area of Effect damage dice is based on shape. Sphere 6d6, cone d8, line d12. This works well with Idea 3, as the number of targets for each shape balances against the damage dice. Want to do lots of damage to a few targets? Use a Line spell. Want to do a little bit of damage to a lot of targets? Use a sphere spell. You can get the average total damage to be roughly balanced.
Idea 5: All damaging spells use the same number of dice and/or bonus damage depending on level. Maybe bonus damage doesn’t scale when casting at higher levels – just the number of dice? This would keep the value of higher level spells, rather than just upcasting L1 spells. You could have a different table for targeted spells and area of effect.
Result? Magic users always roll to attack. They always know if they are rolling against AC or Save Class, depending on if it is a discrete target spell or area of effect. They always know what type of Saving Throw is required based on damage type. They always know the size of the effect based on spell level. They always know what damage dice to use based on the effect’s shape. They always know how many dice to roll based on spell level.
What do they need? A table for damage type VS save ability. A table for spell level vs effect size AND dice number. Maybe a table for effect shape VS dice type.
Thank you Angry, I enjoy to read about your design ideas.
The ideas you hinted at here strike me very similar to ICRPG (Index-Card RPG, Runehammer Games).
For those who are not aware of ICRPG it’s very similiar in some of the ideas proposed here. Just from the top of my hat:
– “[…] the GM chooses an ability score that governs the action and if the player has a relevant proficiency, they can add their proficiency modifier.”
– Spells are “one liners” building on a general framework of rules
– Geometry is simplified (ICRPG uses Close, Near, Far)
Im curious to learn more about your “margin of success” mechanic idea.
And please Angry, hit us with Complications!
Cheers