Cute/Clever Mechanics Swap Meet

[hanschristianandersen]

In the spirit of "Tell me about... your unfinished game ideas"...

What's a clever, cute, interesting unfinished mechanic that you're rather fond of, but that you haven't put into an actual game yet?

Here's my contribution:  For John Woo-esque gun opera:  Start with a 6-die pool, and "shoot" some or all of the pool on your actions.  When the pool is empty, you must "reload", which uses your turn and resets your pool to six.

When not in combat, "shooting" vs. "reloading" could have implications about who gets scene framing power; "reloading" in this circumstance might entail a break in the action, a "quiet" character driven scene, before you dive back into the carnage.

-Hans

[montag]

the random walk: everytime you roll, your base score either goes up or down by one, with two boundaries (upper and lower), the option to increase step size (+-2 instead of +-1) and different starting points. Might end up as either a relationship mechanic, personality mechanic or some kind of fate stuff, where every time you use it brings you closer to one end-point or the other, though _in theory_ this might run forever.

[Rich Forest]

Hm, I like this idea.

Trust: For a heist game, or maybe for my take on the classic unscrupulous D&D tomb robbing adventuring party. Characters have a set of more or less standard stats of some kind to represent their abilities, particularly their thieving or dungeon delving abilities. They also have a set of relationships—one relationship with each other member of the party. Each is listed as "Trust fill in other PC's name here." Each score starts with a rating of 0. During the adventure, whenever someone is in trouble, either failing a roll or perhaps before trying a difficult roll, another player can say "I'll help," which automatically gives the troubled PC a bonus die. It also raises the Trust score between those two characters by one point (on both of their sheets). These points don't come out of a pool or anything, they're just granted automatically. The GM cannot interfere with the establishment of Trust directly, cannot modify Trust scores, cannot have any direct effect on them.

But here's the thing. Whenever a player wants, he can spend those Trust dice to penalize or cancel out the actions of the other player his character has a Trust relationship with. This way, much like in so many heist movies, at the end of the job someone can use those dice, screw over his party members, take the goods, and get away with them.

If you get away with the goods, you win.

The GM's job is to push the characters hard, by setting up challenges and twists that are impossible to overcome without establishing Trust, so by the end of the adventure, the players have built up a bunch of varied Trust scores, a web of Trust. And the GM's other job is to provide lots of opportunities for betrayal that the players know about but the characters don't. If the players destroy themselves and cause the mission to fail through the use of Trust, then the GM wins.

That's the broad outline. I know it has some kinks and problems that could be worked out.

Techniques, Secrets, and Mysteries: This is for a martial arts game, probably Proving Ground. It's not entirely unique (Donjon magic is similar in some ways), but it is distinct in the specifics. Basically, the characters all start out with a broad set of martial arts techniques, each of which is mechanically distinct in its effects (For example, for Proving Ground, the list is something like: Punch, Kick, Smash, Lock, Throw, Pin). Then, through painstaking training and learning secrets from the masters, and so on, the characters can learn "Secrets" and "Mysteries" (the main difference between these being power and rarity). Each Secret or Mystery is a single word, in it's core form. Examples include things like "Eagle, Power, Demon, Dragon, Ascend, Heaven," and so on, and on, and on. This is a specific list, and each one has a single game mechanical effect. Each is unique, so think of each maybe as the equivalent to a card in a game like Magic. Ok, when the players are fighting, they can use these Secrets and Mysteries to empower their Techniques. So, for example, a player with the words "Meditate, Dragon, Ascend, Power," and "Wong Fei Hung," can do any of these attacks:

Ascending Dragon Punch
Meditating Power Kick
Dragon Kick of Wong Fei Hung
Power Throw Meditation

Etc. Etc.

Each is a different attack because each Technique, Secret, and Mystery has its own specific mechanical effect.

Anyway, I have more beloved little mechanics, since pretty much none of my games are finished and all have one "gimmick." But I won't bore you with all of them ;-)

Rich

[hanschristianandersen]

Hey, I like that trust/betrayal mechanic.  For added color in a casino heist game, I wonder if you could couple it with a craps-based dice mechanic...

[Christopher Weeks]

Each player has a sack of color-coded six-siders.  For conflict resolution, you draw out some of them and roll.  The colors indicate different things and the numbers tied to the colors indicate level of success or influence.  I'm imagining one color for aggression, one for defense and one for initiative with a relatively scarse smattering of special other dice, both good and bad.  the person with the highest initiative defines narrative or resolution flow, the person with the highest aggression succeeds at something and the person with the highest defense is immune to something.  Or something.

I've played with other variants too, but it hasn't gone anywhere.

Chris

[Valamir]

I pledge to purchase any game whose designer finds an effective means of using a Kaledoscope as a resolution mechanic.

That's not a gag.  I've long pondered how to do it with no success.  I did have a go at using a View Master as a mechanic...but not a Kaledoscope.

[Marhault]

Lately I've had this idea bouncing around in my head to use a Rubik's Cube for scene/conflict resolution.  The idea is that each color on the cube would be mapped to an abstract concept, (ie, blue=hate, red=desire, green=serenity, etc.) the cube would be rolled for each scene or conflict, and the number or positioning of different colors determine how the scene comes out, with the players narrating the elements into the resolution of the scene.  The center square determines the overall outcome (meaning if the center square is blue, the central conflict of the scene would have to be resolved with hatred somehow).  As a form of control, players might also have a number of "turns" for each scene (reward mechanic, anyone?), where they can turn a side of the cube, producing different squares on top than were originally rolled, thus changing the content of the scene.

Anyway, it's not fully formed, but I think it might be cool for a co-operative storytelling style RPG.

By the way, I think there should be a place to discuss this kind of thing all the time.  It doesn't really fit into the RPG theory or IDG forums, but it could be a potential source of great idea exchange.

[talysman]

I think the game mechanic I have for Lux and Hyle (the gnostic/pseudopigraphia-based game) is pretty clever. roll a d10 against a TN to see if you succeed... but you also roll one or more white and black d6s. if the d10 result is equal to or less than the highest black d6, something bad happens somewhere, because the forces of Darkness have just expressed themselves. if the d10 is equal/less than the highest white d6, you've channeled a little bit of Light into the world, and you can either add another white d6 to future pools (narrating your success in a magical manner,) or you can remove a white d6 and a black d6 permanently from play (and narrate something good happening somewhere.) the white/black dice pools are a group resource, and can fluctuate in other ways, too.

I think variations of this could be used for other games. like a hack-and-slash barbarian fantasy game: just roll that d10 and a bunch of d6s (color's not important, here) and treat rolls below the high d6 result as critical successes. or a sorcerous fantasy game where the d6s represent magical backfires.

[Lxndr]

(In theory, RPG Theory is the place to toss cute/clever mechanics.  That's what been said in the past.  Not that it's very clear)

First, some random comments:

* I like the system you've put in Lux and Hyle, talysman.  Very nicely done.
* I'd take up your kaleidoscope challenge, Ralph (I mean, heck, I used a roulette wheel), but I really have no clue where to even start.  How the heck did you get a viewmaster to even work, 'cause I got no clue on that one either.
* I'm very fond of the Trust mechanic.  I can see combining it with craps very easily, even with bonus dice - the player in question just gets to choose his best combination of two dice.  Makes lucky 7 a little easier to get, or whatever other number you might need to get (craps is sorta weird in its betting, or at least I don't fully understand it, but y'all get my drift I hope).
* I'm intrigued about the random walk, and would love to see more happen to it.  Right now it's just an interesting idea that shares a little bit with Fastlane ("every time you use a facet, it goes down by one; but if you win, you can use your winnings to buy it back up, or buy it higher" - Fastlane purposefully doesn't have anything set up for the high side because, well, burning out is part of the built-in point of the game)

[Lxndr]

Grr.  I was gonna post an actual mechanic too, but I hit "submit" instead of "preview."  So, here it is, and if someone posts in between, so be it.

I do plan, by the way, on using this in an actual game (Earth Too, in point of fact), but it hasn't been used YET, 'cause that's just at the concept stage.  So...conflict resolution with cards:

Every player gets a hand of cards, drawn from a communal deck - how many is based on traits, or other game-mechanical thingamajiggers.  They each choose an opening card, and put it down in front of them.  Once all cards are placed, face-up, the rest of the cards can be placed, free-for-all, on ANY player's stack.

Scoring is done baccarat style.  Tens, jacks, queens, kings are all zeros; aces are one; all other numbers are standard, but if they add up to ten or higher, you subtract ten, or twenty, or whatever.  This leaves everyone with a score of 0-9.  This is, more or less, the order in which you resolve your conflict.  The cards in your stack determine WHAT you can do - each suit represents one type of action or resolution (subdivisions undetermined at this point, 'cause it's just a mechanic); you can only perform one of them, and the number of cards you have of that suit determines how well that task would go.  

So, you can go first, but suck.  You can go first, and then have to choose - be good at something you have a lot of cards in, or be not-so-good at something you really want to do.  You can go last, but have all the cards you want.  I like the potential byplays this has.

[Valamir]

* I'd take up your kaleidoscope challenge, Ralph (I mean, heck, I used a roulette wheel), but I really have no clue where to even start. How the heck did you get a viewmaster to even work, 'cause I got no clue on that one either.

Awww, you're one of the ones I was counting on...

The View Master thing wound up being sort of a cross between Tarot Card reading and Bibliomancy.

(Bibliomancy?  Is that the word?  Anyway that fortune telling thing where you open a book to a random page and pick a word or sentence ...)

Blindly select shuffled view wheel.  Blindly insert wheel.  Blindly click several times.  Describe results based on imagery in the viewer, horoscope style...

Frex, I had a set of National Park wheels so the scene of a group shooting white water would be "danger, obstacles ahead threaten to dash your plans"

[Walt Freitag]

A kaleidoscope could be basically a spinner, but one that yields a mix of colors as a result. If the colored bits in the spinny part are fairly high contrast and arranged not to be able to slide over each other (that is, they're more than half as thick as the chamber containing them), it should be pretty easy to give the scope a spin, look in, and judge which color is dominant, which is next most prevalent, and so forth. Each color is associated with some aspect of the result in Otherkind style (but without the player choice of which color to apply to which aspect of the outcome), such as:

Green:
-- most prevalent: complete success
-- second: partial success
-- third: marginal success
-- fourth: no success

Red:
-- most prevalent: no complications
-- second: one complication
-- third: two complications
-- fourth: major complication

Blue:
-- most prevalent: player narrates
-- second: GM specifies one fact, player narrates
-- third: player specifies one fact, GM narrates
-- fourth: GM narrates

and so forth.

Still needs a way to have player-character and/or situational variations, but you can probably figure out ways for that.

Another idea is to use the type of kaleidoscope that has just mirrors and an open end, showing a kaleidoscope image of whatever you point it at. Mount a cheap digital camera at the viewing end. This would give you a way of making random or semi-random Rorschach-like images of visible real-life objects, people, etc., but I can't think of what you would want to do with them.

- Walt

[Umberhulk]

I like the die-scale:

1- d4
2- d6
3- d8
4- d10
5- d12
6- d20

I had this concept in mind for about 6 months now and I think  that I saw that Orx is using it.  (Note to self: check out Orx).

And just to throw something out there: how would a marbles resolution mechanic work?

[Jeph]

The Prisoner's Dilemma

Each character has a pool of Resource, which starts at 50. Each x2 Skill costs 5 points. Each x4 Skill costs 10 points.

When characters do something, they enlist help. They say what they're trying to accomplish, and ask others to throw in with them. Everyone contributing sets aside a number of their points of Resource, up to 1/10 their starting amount (round down). This maximum is modified by Skills. You do not have to tell anyone what Skill you are using nor the size of your contribution until after actions are resolved (see below). The GM publicly states a target number, from 5 (sinch) to 10 (slightly difficult) to 15 (very difficult) to 20 (incredibly difficult) Then, everyone shoots rock paper scissors.

Rock: Reliable. I'm doing what I said I would. I'm helping with the action that we talked about. Add up the contributions of everyone who played a Rock. If this total equals or exceeds DOUBLE the TN, then the action that everyone agreed upon is a success.

Paper: Breakable. Back down. Totally not part of this.

Scissors: Cutting and scheming. I'm doing something totally different, and using you to do it! Add up your own contribution and that of everyone who played a Rock. If this total equals or exceeds the TN, then your private action is a success.

For instance: this game is about scheming wizards. Our characters are James (pool 40, base max 4, Army At Disposal 8, Fire Magic 8), Wormsworth (pool 40, base max 4, Illusion 16), and William (pool 35, base max 3, Friends in High Places 7, Gate In Demons 17).

James proposes they fight off the barbarians from the North. The other two agree. The GM sets the TN at 10. They show:

James: Rock, contribution 7 (army)
Wormsworth: Rock, contribution 4
William: Scissors! Summon demons to CRUSH YOU while you're busy with the barbarian hordes! contribution 12 (demon summoning)

So. James and Wormsworth have a combined score of 11, which is enough to fight of the barbarians. But now they have a TN 12 pack of demons to deal with. William comes in and says he apologizes, and pledges his help in fighting off the demons that he himself created. They show:

James: Rock: contribution 8 (army)
Wormsworth: Scissors! Use illusions to maneuver James into the jaws of the demons! contribution 10 (illusion)
Wlliam: Scissors! summon MORE demons to get rid of Wormsworth! contribution 12 (demons)

So James has an 8 fighting off the demon horde, Wormsworth has an 18 doing in James, and William has a 20 doing in Wormsworth. This means that the demons overrun James and Wormsworth. If James survives, he'll have to deal with a TN 18 threat. If Wormsworth survives, he'll have to deal with a TN 20 threat.

Mechanic: When you have a chance of being eliminated, find your margin of error, ie TN minus opposing total. (In the case of James vs. Demons, this is 12-8, or 4.) Then either spend no resources, resources equal to 1/2 the margin, or resources equal to the margin or x times the margin. Play a standard game or rock/paper/scissors with the GM.

No Payment: Down if you lose or tie
1/2 Payment: Down if you lose
Full Payment: Down if you lose 2 games running.
x Payments: Down if you lose x+1 games running.

Suppose James pays 8 resources. That's twice the margin of 4. So, he's out of the game if he loses three matches of rock/paper/scissors running.

Mechanic: Players will somehow need to get resource BACK. When they succeed at a task, Resource isn't automatically lost. Instead they lose Resource equal to the TN of the task or Resource spent, whichever is lower. They gain Resource equal to double the margin of success. If you're starting a new action, instead of responding to something, you can't gain Resource.

For instance: When James and Wormsworth were fighting the barbarians, they had a total of 11. That's 1 over the TN of 10. They each gain back 2 points of resource.

Erm. This is more of a full game than mechanic. Off to Indie Design I go!
--jeff

[taalyn]

Search on Crux here on the Forge, for one possible marbles mechanic.