[the Waste] Resolution Mechanics Revisited

[Charlie Gilb]

Hey folks,

About a month ago, I posted here (and on Story Games) regarding my post-apocalyptic game called 'the Waste'. I wanted to get some insights into my resolution mechanics.

Well, here is my next go at them, taking into account much of the feedback I had gotten. A lot of things have changed, but I think it will be for the better. Let me know what you think. I have some questions at the end.

Okay, in brief, here is how it works:

Every PC has Aspects listed on their sheet with die ratings of 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, or 1d12. Each Aspect only has 1 die. The higher the die size, the better. Aspects are divided into Stats, Traits, Relationships, and Gear.

Task Resolution:

When a character wishes to undertake a task, the GM and Player set stakes for success or failure. The player gathers the appropriate dice related to the task they are undertaking and roll them. If one of their dice come up as a 4 or higher, they get their stakes. If no dice come up as a 4 or higher, the GM gets his stakes.

If all of the Player's dice are 4s or higher- the Player gets his stakes. Nothing else happens.

If some, but not all of the Player's dice are 4s or higher- a Player gets his stakes, but with complications. For every die that did not show up as a 4 or higher, the GM gets to do one of two things: a) inflict 1 point of Harm to the PC, or b) introduce a narrative complication.

Narrative complications are introduced through two trigger words: 'AND' or 'BUT'. 'BUT' is usually the first complication word used. For example, if a player succeeds on a roll, but has one failure die, the GM can say "You (succeed at the player's intent), BUT (complication) happens".

Similarly, if a player has two failure dice in a successful roll, the GM would use the 'BUT' narrative complication and also inflict 1 point of Harm. Harm is directly subtracted from a character's Health pool (represented by tokens). As of now, Health would start somewhere around 20.

If there are 3 failed dice, the GM gets a 'BUT' narrative complication, followed by an 'AND' complication, and 1 point of Harm. For example, "You (succeed at the player's intent), BUT (complication) happens, AND (complication) happens. You are also Harmed (by 1) because of this."

At 4 failed dice, there is a BUT complication, AND complication, and 2 Harm are inflicted.

If none of the Player's dice show up as 4s or higher- the GM gets his stakes, unless the Player decides to Take the Pain.

Taking the Pain- the Player gets his stakes, but immediately picks up a number of d4's (called 'Pain Dice') equal to the amount of dice he rolled when he failed. He also takes complications and Harm, as if he had a number of failures equal to those Pain Dice.

Pain Dice- are then rolled for future tasks. The function like other Aspect Dice, causing success when 4s are rolled, and complications or Harm when anything less is rolled. Pain Dice can only be alleviated in two different ways: a.) When healed within the fiction of the game, as represented by 'refresh' scenes, or b.) whenever one of them shows up as a 4 during task resolution rolls. Any Pain Dice that show up as 4s turn into Scars, and are then removed from the PC's Pain pool.

Scars are the reward mechanic for the game. Whenever a Pain Die turns into a Scar, the player should take a Scar Token. Scar Tokens can be spent for various things, such as regaining Health, re-rolling failures, negating 'BUT' and 'AND' complications, and adding a his own 'BUT' and 'AND' responses to a GM's complications.

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I think that's all of the mechanical bits at this time. Now, what I want to work on this is marrying this reolution system with what I want my game to do. I want it to represent people pushing themselves towards their absolute limits to get what they want. In 'the Waste', PCs should be getting the living shit beat out of them, and Taking the Pain to get the things that matter to their characters the most. These things will probably be listed as 'Drives' or 'Desires' on the character sheet. I am struggling a bit on how I want to push players towards this.

Further, my other idea for Scars was that once a certain amount of Scar Tokens are spent (say, every 10 or so), the PC gets another 'Scar Aspect' that they can put on their sheet. These Aspects are rated at d4s, with the Caveat that when they are rolled, no Harm or complications can be inflicted when they show up as smaller than 4. You could also give the Aspects cool names or quotes like: "I would sooner die than be made a slave again", or "That sonofabitch will get what's coming to him, no matter the cost". Do you all think that handling Scars in this way is a compelling enough reward? Note that I don't want players to have to make a trade off between short and long-term bonuses with this reward mechanics; I hate when games do that.

I really feel like I am on to something here with this resolution system, but I want to get more input. Do you see any other problems that I am overlooking?

[Abkajud]

So, basically, my Scar Aspects give me a better chance of accomplishing what really matters to me. Hot! Sounds good to me. I especially like that they don't make things even more complicated, even though you're adding more dice - the Otherkind dice have this balancing act between the utility of adding more dice (which adds more things that could go wrong) vs. something like getting +1 bonuses on your dice themselves, which would be more like actual skill or passion or something coming to the fore.

Question for ya: how do you determine the ratings for Aspects? I could see wanting to stay the hell away from d4 Aspects if at all possible, as they're mostly liability and not a lot of agency. Then again, going up a single die size would make getting 4+ nowhere nearly as difficult (on d6, it's actually twice as easy), so I could see people being interested in bumping up their d4 Aspects as soon as possible.

Any ideas on how *that* works? And does that even happen? If it did, then because a given Aspect would become more of a resource than a liability over time, it could represent the character mastering his rage, or getting better at watching his mouth, or something. If you can't improve Aspects, then I would see the lower-die-size Aspects as straight-up disadvantages that only rarely provide anything helpful for the character.

[Charlie Gilb]

Abkajud (is your name Zac?)-

Most Aspects would fall into the d4 or d6 range. A character might have a d8 starting out. You can't *not* have d4s. They are unavoidable.

Now, it may seem like d4 Aspects are liabilities, and in a way they are-- they make your character's life difficult! But, if you don't have an Aspect for something, you won't have any chance at succeeding (because you'll have no dice). Also consider that Taking Pain is the only way to get Scars, so you might want to fail sometimes in order to get them. Once you have a decent sized Scar pool, you can spend it to alleviate the complications gained from all those Aspects, but still retain the increased chances of rolling a 4 that they give you.

Still, I think you are on to something here that I am overlooking. So, how about Scar Aspects *replacing* the lower-die Aspects over time? Hell, these lower-die Aspects could even *be* the character's Desires or Drives. I am just musing at this point, but that could be a neat fix, if a fix is necessary.

Another possible fix is requiring more than one 4 to be rolled when attempting certain tasks, so a character might have to make the choice to roll the d4 Aspects they have. That would give them a bit more value as well.