Ashen: Concerns about handling time

[Garbanzo]

I'm knee-deep into a design (Ashen).  I've got mechanics that support my premise, but I'm wishing there was less handling time involved.  Specifically, any total comes from adding two attributes, a skill, and a card value.  This feels like a lot to me.  I'm wondering if other folks agree, and if so what suggestions people may have.


What I've got:  

The, er, Creative Agenda of the thing is the cultural interactions when you have a passel of fantasy races/ species all bumping into each other.  There are 6 races, none human, each of which has their own worldview and way of resolving conflicts.  (On the alienness scale, we're not talking Hivers meet Hobbits, we're talking Navajo meet Japanese.)

Given the creative agenda, I wanted attributes to be descriptors of both concrete capability and "personality."  So I have an Ars Magicish noun-verb thing going on.  Any action is a combination of [Social/ Mental/ Physical] and [Flow/ Focus/ Balance], one of each.  Swashbuckly swordplay: [Physical, Flow].  Viking axework: [Physical, Focus].  Skills are free-floating, and can be used with any attribute pairing.
The randomizer is a hand of cards, rather than dice.  8 suits of cards – 1 for each attribute, one wild and one "culture" suit.  The culture suit acts as [Physical] for one culture, [Social] for another, etc.  If the card you play is not an applicable attribute (or not wild), it only adds one, regardless of the face value.

What I like about the attribute system is that a character will prefer to use the same type of action (flow vs. focus, say) across different realms (mental vs. physical).  This ties the character together in an archetype-reinforcing way.  Having a higher Focus than Flow because you do a lot of direct, explosive physical labor means that in social interactions, your tendency is to be more gruff and brusque [Focus] than polite [Flow].  The oily-tongued vizir [Social, Flow] will slip a dagger between your ribs while you're distracted [Physical, Flow], not heft a scimitar.

Characters from different cultures act differently because the mechanics support this.  A la Cosmic Encounter, rules tweaks make and demonstrate different proficiencies.
Example:
Priaad (Higher tech, colonizing and conquering.  Scheming.  Machiavellian pre-renaissance Italy types.)
+1 when taking Advantage (which is forfeiting a current effect to use as a bonus to next round)
The Culture suit is [Flow]
Once per game session a Priaad player may specify a suit.  Whoever has the highest of that suit in their hand must surrender it for the calling player to play immediately.

And that's where I am.


What I don't like about all this:

I'm a big fan of low handling time.  And we're all used to adding attribute + skill + roll, which is serviceable.  But I'm afraid that adding attributeA + attributeB + skill + card will slow things down too much, especially given the strategizing of a card and attribute combination.  Attributes range from -5 to +5, usually in the small positives, and skills are also small numbers, so I'm not worried about the *work* involved, just the time.
Opinions?  Suggestions?

And, too, I've got an "Attribute plus skill" system (cf 250 relevant threads).  Chargen has seperate point sets for attributes and skills, so I'm not worried about min/ maxing.  I'm ok with my reasons for splitting attributes and skills, but I'm well open to alternatives.  What do y'all think?

(And miscellaneous comments are just fine, too.)

Thanks!
-Matt

[Mike Holmes]

You know, given the amount of data that's being input, I think the slight extra handling time is justified. Then again, I don't mind a lot of handling time. So it might just be my bias. But I've always said that it's not so much handling and search times that are bad, but high handling and search relative to the inputs and outputs. As long as the system is doing something with all that data, it's just fine, perhaps even advantageous (gets the players thinking in those terms), to add a little handling time.

Mike

[Matt Gwinn]

It sounds to me like the problems come in when you add the card.  Just reading it makes me feel like I hit a brick wall.  I understand where you're going and I like the direction you're taking your system, but it's definetly too much time handling time.

How often does the mechanic come into play?  Is it 1 action = 1 draw? 1 set of actions = 1 draw? or 1 scene = 1 draw?  

It seems to me that your game is kind of Sim, but I think you can save a lot of the handling time if you throw a narrativist bent on the system and have players declare intent, draw, then narrate the outcome.  I think that's called "Fortune in the Front" if my memory serves.  

,Matt G.

[Matt Gwinn]

I've always said that it's not so much handling and search times that are bad, but high handling and search relative to the inputs and outputs.

This reminds me.  You need to be very clear about how the cards work and what each suit stands for.  Try to make it simple.  The thing that slows a game down the most is having to continually look stuff up.

,Matt G.

[szilard]

Well... an efficient character sheet can speed up the handling time here.

How? Have the nine Attribute+Attribute combos already listed and added together.

Then have the skills that the character typically uses with a specific A+A combo listed under each of those (with the recognition that those skills could fall under a different combo in some situations).

Now, probably 80%+ of the time you just have a single number to add to the card draw.

Stuart

[Garbanzo]

Matt:

The cards are pretty straightforward.  It's just "Flow: 3", or "Wild: 5."  I'm not anticipating confusion on that front; the card either matches one of the attributes being used, or it doesn't.
The only labor is knowing that every card in your hand that says "Culture: x" in your case maps to "Physical: x."  Or whatever it maps to.  

(Uh, to be clear, the example given was a race, not a card.)

I agree that a 15-round combat would be a bit much.  I'm going with FitM conflict resolution, with only Very Important Events taking more than 1 card.


Slizard:

Yah, I've done a lot of playing with a fixed grid.
I initially started with a grid of nine, with each attribute being a combination of Row, Column, and Point.  That is, if I've got [Flow: 3], [Social: 1] and [Savior-Faire: 1], these combine for an effective Savior-Faire of 5.

Man, my evil math over-brain was digging it, but my beating heart was screaming in agony.  What I was really liking was having a row or column reflect across the character, and the other stuff was creeping in because it seemed "necessary."

To your point, though, damage is taken to attributes.  So values are constantly changing, and the grid would be in constant flux.

I'm a little nervous that this is going to be too clumsy - erasings and scratchings all over the place.  I don't want to introduce a Hit Point mechanic just to have HPs, though.

-Matt

[Mike Holmes]

I dunno, all seems pretty good to me. I mean in a world where Rolemaster exists, how can you call this high handling time?

As for record keeping, just have a whole row for each stat to the right of the heading for it. Then players can just cross off the last value, and write in a new one. Then between sessions just fill in a new sheet. Making this a requirement also forces players to consider other bookkeeping as they do it.

Mike

[Palaskar]

I've come up with a similar problem in my own rpg. For me, a handling time of no more than three steps (eg, Att + Skill +Roll) is ideal.

I agree with what other people have said -- a good character sheet with precalculated values and room for changing values would really speed things up.

If you do this, you end up beneath the key 3 step level.

Also, try and minimize card use, or put the modifier right up top in large print.

IMHO, you should keep the Att1+ At2 setup; the feeling that characters will stick to general styles across the board is very neat and elegant.