On encounter design, combat and incentives

After writing the third Hexember post, I couldn't stop thinking about two blog posts regarding incentivized behavior, the first by Luke Gearing, and the second by Zedeck Siew. Did I unintentionally incentivize players to act diplomatically rather than violently through how I designed the hex's points of interest? And if so, is that really such a bad thing?

COMBAT & MODERN ELFGAMES

It's no secret that 5e has more rules and guidelines for combat than anything else, and while I'm not trying to start a discourse on "eliding", it's my personal opinion that if most of the tools bestowed by a system are related to violence, then you shouldn't be surprised when violence becomes the players' default approach to every problem or situation. That incentive is baked into the game, and while most OSR games are better about this, there's still a prevalence of combat-related rules in them.

Paradoxically, OSR combat has been frequently touted as a fail state, particularly when it's fought fairly. The maxim "combat as war, not sport" is also a mainstay in these discussions, even if the rules don't always reflect it. One could argue that the high lethality found in the majority of OSR games supports those points, but that lethality usually ceases to be a problem once characters have enough experience under their belts. Some games have done their part to mitigate that power creep (shoutout to Into the Odd, Cairn and CY_BORG!), but when it comes to older games, well, character advancement tended to lead to HP bloat and/or disparity, as seen with the good ol' linear fighters vs. quadratic wizards conundrum.

If combat is the baked-in solution to most problems, then rewarding it would only worsen the issue at hand. This leads us to the crux of my encounter design philosophy: if the players want to maim and kill everything in their way, they are free to do so. The world, on the other hand, won't reward them for committing senseless violence. Most of the time, they'll only be wasting their resources and risking their lives by acting that way — just like in real life.

STICK VS. CARROT

Let's face it: if rewarding violence is the carrot, and if most of the rules are combat-oriented, there's an argument to be made that not rewarding it is akin to punishing the players for playing the game as written, or as it was intended to be played — hence, the stick. This could lead us to an entire discussion about setting expectations, the importance of a session zero and so on, but that's one rabbit hole I'm not willing to dive into today, lest this post completely loses its original purpose: discussing incentives in play.

So what's the solution here? Should you just play a different game if you don't want to reward violence?

Well, not necessarily, no. As mentioned above, setting expectations before play is an important part of literally any game, and unlike 5e, a lot of OSR/NSR games have plenty of rules for approaching the world in many different ways. But then again, rewarding players for engaging with those rules could be seen as just as bad as rewarding violence; you're just signaling that diplomacy, careful exploration and scheming are the optimal ways to play the game. 

While there's nothing wrong with that playstyle (some would go as far as saying that the ideal OSR playstyle looks a lot like what I just described), it can become stale. Once the characters start doing what's optimal rather than what their backgrounds and personalities dictate, are the players still roleplaying them, or are they just gaming? Going too far in the opposite direction is just as bad, mind! "It's what my character would do" has traumatized countless GMs, including yours truly.

Me, I advocate for balance in all things. Naturally, that goes for encounters and their rewards, too.

BALANCING INCENTIVES

Balancing what you incentivize with your rewards is simpler than you might expect. When you're writing any situation, encounter or location, consider what's logical. Sometimes, violence is the best answer, one that may wield the best rewards. Oftentimes, it isn't. The secret here is letting whatever makes the most sense happen, rather than trying to direct your players and their characters towards being kind and diplomatic or bloodthirsty murderers through in-game rewards. Let them do what's natural for them and reap the consequences, good or bad.

The first three Hexember posts actually have relevant examples of logical consequences, rather than incentivized behaviors:

• Fighting (and killing) the sickly giant from the Stinging-Tree Canyon won't lead the party to a tomb full of gold, and it may even lead to a few PCs getting sick, too. On the other hand, they'll have put an end to the poor giant's suffering, and that counts for something. A party that sneakily avoids the encounter entirely won't risk contracting the disease, but the giant may still be a problem for anyone who passes through the canyon in the future. No obvious rewards here.
  
• Combat isn't really much of a concern in the Chronal Wastes, but if the party does end up in a fight while trapped in the war zone, they'll actually benefit from defeating the enemy squad, gaining access to firearms that won't be invented anytime soon. Violence would be rewarded, but only because looting a superior force's advanced weapons is a logical conclusion to fighting them.
• The Crimson Crystarium is what brought us here in the first place, so it's a little more ambiguous than the examples above. The vampire packs encountered in that hex can be approached in several different ways, and one pack actually initiates combat in a "honorable" manner (sport and war, yadda, yadda). Outright murdering that pack turns the others hostile, yes, but only because it makes sense. Hell, murdering any pack would have that result, even if I didn't outright spell that. Meanwhile, there's another pack that won't even directly engage the party, and if attacked, will leave combat as soon as they've gotten their share of blood. Finally, killing the "diplomatic" pack could potentially lead to an even better reward (as many weird healing crystals as the party can carry), with the consequence of making every other pack hostile. But would ridding the lands of bloodsucking monsters be such a bad thing? No easy answers here. No simple solution.
  

And that, I guess, is what I've been trying to get at: when designing a situation, encounter or location, consider the logical consequences of its likely outcomes. It shouldn't matter whether those consequences would be beneficial or prejudicial to the players and their characters, as long as they're organic. 

The world is your character, and playing it straight can do wonders for your campaign's verisimilitude.

I started writing my own fantasy heartbreaker, and it's all Prismatic Wasteland's fault!

The title says it all, really. Have you ever been so inspired by a blogpost that you immediately started writing a brand new elfgame? Because folks, that's where I'm at right now. Prismatic Wasteland's rehabilitation of the To-Hit roll touched on an aspect of TTRPG combat that never quite worked for me. Automatic hits are cool, don't get me wrong, but they often still produce low/no damage hits, depending on the system, and that's almost as unsatisfying as missing. 

The ambiguity of Hit Points only makes things worse, in my experience. Some people see them as a character's health and damage as wounds (which is unfeasible in the long run), but personally, I like them better as Hit Protection, as exemplified by Cairn. This abstraction of how long a character can safely avoid a truly serious hit is much more satisfying to me than actually treating each and every lost point of HP as an injury.

And with that in mind, I started tinkering just like Tony Stark in that damn cave, but instead of scrap, I had pure gold to tinker with. Thanks, Warren.

ATTACK CHECKS

To make an attack check, roll your character's Attack Die. If the result is higher than the opponent's Defense, they lose an amount of HP equal to your base damage. If the roll’s result is lower than their Defense, you only deal half your Base Damage to their HP, rounded down.


Enemy attack checks are made with their Attack Die against the PC’s Base Defense. Rolling above it deals their full Base Damage to the character’s HP, while rolling below it does only half their Base Damage, rounded down.

Sometimes, it will be impossible to overcome the opponent's Defense with your attack die (e.g. d4 against 6 Defense). In this case, just apply half your damage to their HP normally, without rolling dice. The same goes for enemies.

Quite simple, yeah? What I tried to achieve with the rules in the excerpt above was a compromise between to-hit and auto-hit, while removing those pesky whiffs. You're always gonna deal some damage to the enemy's Hit Protection, you're always gonna soften them up a little. Defense, then, isn't a way of negating hits, but an abstraction of how good someone is at delaying the inevitable, and how much their armor can help them with that.

For clarity's sake, Base Damage is determined by adding the character's Attack Bonus (tied to class-based progression) to their weapon's damage. Base Defense works much the same way, adding the character's Defense Bonus to their armor's defense. That, of course, brings us to weapons and armor rules.

WEAPONS, ARMOR AND DURABILITY

To determine a weapon’s damage or a piece of armor’s defense, simply roll its damage/defense die once after purchasing, forging or finding it. The result is not permanent and can be increased by blacksmiths or decreased by excessive use.


At the end of a combat, if you rolled a 1 on any attack check, roll your weapon's Usage Die. If you suffered damage during combat, also roll the Usage Die for your armor and/or shield. Results of 1 to 2 reduce the damage or defense of the equipment corresponding to the die. 


The base price to recover defense points lost by a damaged weapon or armor is equal to ⅓ of its total value, rounded down. The price for improving the damage or defense of a weapon or armor by 1 point is equal to ½ of its total value. Blacksmith skill and special circumstances may increase or decrease both the price and the efficiency of the service.





Have I mentioned how much Prismatic Wasteland's blog influenced this? The coolest part of these rules was lifted straight from his blogpost! I just added durability and some tables. Speaking of which...

Fresh off the layout test!

Now, what use would those rules be without a list of weapons, armor and shield?

Kindly ignore the gibberish placeholder prices, please. I'm postponing those for as long as I can, lmao.

While writing this post, I realized I have yet to translate my armor and shield tables to English. Oops. I might update this later with them. Or not! My memory is rubbish.

INITIATIVE, DYING AND TACTICAL DEPTH

If you're curious about how I'd handle Initiative with these rules, then look no further than my previous blogpost! I'm still not 100% set on how I want to handle death, though, but one thing's for sure: lingering wounds after 0 HP are gonna be a thing, with "negative" HP being added to a roll on a lingering wounds table.

As for tactical depth, well, those of you who follow me on Twitter may be aware of my plans for a big two-parter post on expanded combat maneuvers and magic rules. Those are still happening, rest assured, and they're gonna play a big part in whatever comes out of this lapse in judgement (which has a tentative name already).

THE WYVERN HACK? REALLY?

I swear to god this came to me in a dream or something. It's (probably) not final. It's not original at all. I'm not even sure if it's good! 

So, what is The Wyvern Hack? Above all else, it's a marriage between my two favourite playstyles. NSR sensibilities with a PbtA bent. It's also a collection of procedures and random tables I made throughout the years, and an opportunity to put my own spin on some classic elfgame classes (check out the Dungeoneer!). And it's yet another fantasy heartbreaker with a generic name.

Still. A name is a powerful thing. It gives things purpose. Drives them forward. It inspires. If this project has any chance in hell of taking flight, that's what I'll need to be: driven and inspired.

And you know what? I always thought wyverns were much cooler than dragons anyway.

Design Exorcism: DIG!, a dwarf-centric TTRPG

As the title (coined by the great @SandroMayCry) may imply, this isn't the announcement of a new project, but rather an attempt at flushing some game concepts and ideas from my head. I'm probably never gonna seriously work on DIG!, but if you'd still like to learn more about what a dwarf-centric game made by yours truly would look like, read on. 

THE PITCH

Nothing is more important to dwarvenkind than the Great Work, the sacred duty of restoring and reclaiming their long-lost Underkingdoms. Not family, not love, not wealth. Nothing. Without the Great Work, they have no future. No place to call home.

The Great Work is everything, and it is an honour to be a part of it. You shall face many a hardship during your Watch, and you may even forfeit your life while fighting for your people's future, but you will live on in each and every tunnel your company recovers, digs or improves. There is no greater legacy.

Evil hides down below, infesting and corrupting your ancestral homelands. The cruel, opportunistic and genocidal Drow seek to take every last inch of the Underkingdoms from your people, armed with weapons bought with stolen gold from the people Above who feign neutrality, and with destructive spells supplied by their High Elven brethen. Opportunistic dragons have made their lairs where your forges once burned, hoarding the wealth your ancestors left behind. Hell-spawned goblins and orcs raid your cities, dragging your young and your weak to their infernal pits.

The Dwarven Companies of the Watch are outnumbered a hundred to one, but you don't have the privilege of giving up. Your enemies will never broker a long-lasting peace, not while you're still Below. But no matter what the people Above say, yours is not a lost cause. You are living proof of that.

And so you fight. For your young. For yourself. For the chance, however small, of living to see some better days.

MECHANICS (OR LACK THEREOF)

Now, the real reason why I won't turn this into a proper project isn't the overly dramatic, clichéd and politically clumsy drivel above, but rather an unwillingness to settle on a playstyle/framework. I can't decide whether I'd want DIG! to be a more traditional thing (like a mix of Cairn and Electric Bastionland), or if I'd rather go with something akin to Forged in the Dark games. And I have a good reason for that, too.

The central procedure for DIG! involves the PC Company's Shifts — that is, the time they spend away from base, renovating tunnels, digging deeper, liberating long-forgotten outposts or simply patrolling. Each successful Shift would allow the characters to either fill a portion of a progress clock (there's that damned FitD influence again), or wipe off a portion of a threat clock. Progress clocks would be assigned to constructive Shift actions, while threat clocks would be a way to measure the rising threats to the Company's progress — which is why Shift actions like patrolling the tunnels, reinforcing an outpost's defenses and charging into enemy territory would alleviate those threats. 

At each and every Shift, the Company would have to roll a Threat die (d6, a glorified Overloaded Encounter Die). On a 1, the Foreman (aka the GM) would roll an event in the relevant table — that is, each type of Shift action would get a table for this. The Company could choose to push themselves to accomplish more during a Shift, be it by extending its duration or by working extra hard, filling/erasing another portion on the clock. Each time they did so, though, would warrant another roll of the Threat die, adding 1 to the odds of an event and increasing its severity.

PC Companies would also get to choose a directive, like War, Engineering and Relief, and each of these would double Shift effects on certain actions, while halving them on others. Company creation would also involve choosing a Righteous Pursuit, which is a fancy way of calling a big, memorable goal, the kind of thing that only a few dwarves ever manage to achieve. Examples of Righteous Pursuits would include brokering an alliance with emissaries from Above, destroying an infernal pit, founding a new city or liberating a sacred forge. I really enjoy this aspect of DIG!, as it's a great way of letting the players signal what they're particularly interesting in doing during the campaign.

The thing about the whole spiel above is, there's nothing stopping me from merging both playstyles — that is, keeping the clocks while still following the more involved, lethal, turn-to-turn gameplay offered by OSR games like Cairn and Electric Bastionland, but I'm worried about losing what makes those different approaches tick by combining them. So, as it is, this remains just an exercise in design exorcism.

ARCHETYPES

The final bit of DIG! I need to exorcise are the archetypes, which would be structurally similar to Electric Bastionland's failed careers. I have no idea how many I'd include, but I did manage to note a few down while I was still processing this whole thing. They'd each have two questions leading to a d6 table (which is where Electric Bastionland's influence comes in), but the examples below only have the questions, as I didn't quite get to the part of this folly where I start writing tables, thankfully.

• The Noble (what is your family's claim to glory, and what privilege do you have?)
• The Miner (what are you looking for in the tunnels, and what's the strangest thing you've found down here?)
• The Outlander (where did you come from, and what made the dwarves accept you?)
• The Exile (why were you exiled, and what secret keeps you alive?)
• The Reverend (what is your faith, and what symbol do you carry?)
• The Fallen (what got you discharged, and what did they arm you with?)
• The True Believer (why do you believe in the Great Work, and what did you buy in preparation for your Watch?)
• The Canary (what are your songs about, and what instrument do you play?) 
• The Bastard (what did your noble-blooded parent promise you, and what family heirloom did you take?)
  

ALL DUG OUT

And that's all I came up for this fever dream of a game concept. Is DIG! ever going to be a thing? Probably not. But the idea of dwarves fighting to reclaim their homelands and protect their people against all odds still speaks to me. Tales of camaraderie, self-sacrifice and the hopeless struggle for a better future... that's proper V.V. bait, right there. 

Alas, this could probably be done well enough as a campaign in a variety of different games, so at this time, there's no need to reinvent the wheel.

But who knows.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse and the impact of flawed representation

I have conflicting feelings about Werewolf: The Apocalypse.

As a mixed-race Indigenous person who wasn't raised by their people, Werewolf was my first contact with a true attempt at representation for Indigenous cultures. It wasn't entirely positive, nor was it responsible, sensible or accurate, bordering on the noble savage racist trope, but given that everything else treated us like less-than, it mattered.

Seeing my ancestry being portrayed as this interesting, vibrant and deeply spiritual collection of cultures sparked an awakening of sorts.

Now, I grew up deeply ashamed of my skin and my features, even resenting the fact that I didn't look like the White protagonists I was force-fed by Hollywood throughout my childhood. My hair didn't look like everyone else's, and no one knew how to cut it properly. My eyes were "too slanted", and I constantly had to endure jokes about Japan, a deeply racist practice here in Brazil. I was often told to avoid the sun so my skin would look whiter and I would "fit in" better.

I didn't want to be an Indigenous person. I felt Othered, alone, isolated. But Werewolf: The Apocalypse, with all its many, MANY flaws, somehow helped me see just how deep, powerful and beautiful my ancestry is.

In spite of all its faults, WtA was the push I needed to get in touch with my roots. After years of research and healing, I started to notice something funny. I no longer felt ashamed of what I looked like and of being who I am. On the contrary: I was proud. My skin is beautiful. My culture is rich, diverse and full of wonder.

Embracing the spiritual side of my heritage was an act of self-love, too. I was forcibly inducted into Christianity as a child, and that was a traumatic experience, to say the least. I closed myself off to anything that felt remotely religious due to that trauma for at least half my life. But now I know where I come from. I appreciate it. I am empowered by it. I know who's looking after me, and I trust and appreciate their protection.

And if I hadn't bought Werewolf: The Apocalypse on impulse when I was 17, I'm not sure this is where I'd be today.

But I can't talk about WtA without mentioning its recent controversies, which range from plagiarism (including the tracing of a Maōri activist's likeness and sacred Tā moko) to a toxic, oppressive work environment detailed by J.F. Sambrano in harrowing detail here. Werewolf: The Apocalypse has never been perfect, but these were brand new lows.

So, how do I reconcile WtA's issues with the massive impact it had on my life? Not easily, I suppose. I will forever be grateful for that first push, and Werewolf: The Apocalypse will always have a place on my shelf as the first TTRPG I ever bought, but I can't and won't endorse its dark side.

Still, the fact of the matter is that representation always matters, no matter how flawed.

It can save lives.

It probably saved mine.