Cute/Clever Mechanics Swap Meet

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Rich deserves some credit, it was his basic idea.

Ahem.

Mad props to Rich. It's an excellent idea.

Also, have you guys heard of "role-playing-games"? They're a lot of fun. I think they were invented by Tim Kleinert.






Ninja escape!

[Kit]

To harp on my favourite theme of Option (sorry), I really like the mechanic I've established for dealing with fatigue/injury/spellcasting/anything else, which is that rather than having a certain number of hitpoints or what-not, as you get more tired, injured, cast too much magic, whatever you acquire penalties to different classes of rolls. Death is handled by having a survival roll which you (in theory) have to make every half hour or so, but until you've racked up a wopping big penalty on your roll you can pass it on a 1 so don't need to roll.

This may prove too mechanically clunky to use, but I hope not.

[Kit]

Character development through boasting.

(Details snipped)

Shit, that's nearly a complete game. I'll write it up some time between drafts of Schrodinger's War.

Wow. That's really really cool. I shall keep my eyes open for when you do write it up, and then I shall bloody well beat my gaming group with a nerf bat until they agree to play it. :-)

[daMoose_Neo]

Blame my stats class I suppose, but I've grown very keen on 2d spreads.

Just a showcase mechanic really- me game Imps (http://www.neoproductions.net/imp/) follows as such:

- All players use the same TN for everything, which starts at 2
- Using points, which all players start with 10 of, they can spend 1 or 2 points per attempt to raise the TN
- Rolling 2d6, the player attempts to roll under the TN. Doing so nets the player more points equal to the roll and resetting the TN back to 2. Losing the roll means the player gets nothing, but the TN remains at the new value.

Works out that success is inevitable, but since players can roll on anything, it becomes a question of "who succeeds at what?"
Posted it though because I've been tossing around several variations in my mind. Tis quick and simple really, and can be played with.
One idea is similar, except a "roll higher than" situation: TN starts at 2, roll higher than TN, but each success raises the TN one point. Failure then becomes the inevitable, and you can almost tick it down, bwahahahaha!

I rather like that though.  A countdown to failure. *grins evilly*

[Rich Forest]

Rich deserves some credit, it was his basic idea.

Ahem.

Mad props to Rich. It's an excellent idea.

And while we're passing props around, I have to say, Tim's still the star of the show. He actually created a full-fledged, playable game to make the idea work, and then he wrote the game and is getting it out there. And that's the real accomplishment. If I had a finished game for every idea I had, well... :-)

Rich

[Tobias]

LEadership, Orders and yells

For use in a strategic/tactical focused game: your leadership score translates, in some way, to the ability to give a number of orders. Those that get the orders get a bonus to actions following that order, based on that same leadership skill. Following orders reinforces the social status, but there's rules for rebelling as well.

Outside of combat, a similar thing could be used (political leadership, spiritual leadership, etc.).

Also, none of this 'it costs you an action to speak during combat stuff' - it makes speaking to your comrades a less attractive option during combat - I want people to yell 'look out' (an order, basically), and have it matter.

The Bag

Even though it's gone from YGAD, I still think a bag from which both successes and failures are drawn, mixed with special results and tiles based on player's chargen en DM's opposition-generation could be fast & cool.

[Harlequin]

To that last - Tobias, the guy doing the dev work for the (wargame, not RPG) Attack Vector: Fleets has gone one step further... imagine a gamist RPG where if you don't yell "Look out!" or "Move! Move! Move!" then you don't decide what the secondary characters do - the GM does.  And as the leader, there's only so much you can do...

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

To that last - Tobias, the guy doing the dev work for the (wargame, not RPG) Attack Vector: Fleets has gone one step further... imagine a gamist RPG where if you don't yell "Look out!" or "Move! Move! Move!" then you don't decide what the secondary characters do - the GM does.  And as the leader, there's only so much you can do...

Wouldn't it be better to do this mechanically with variations based on morale, communication, and randomness? I've often come up with the same idea you have there, but mechanics would go a long way to keeping things fair and fun.

Consider the bind the GM is in:

- Does the GM make things more interesting by giving the losing side a better chance to catch up, and the winning side falling into problems because of cockiness? That makes the game drag on.

- Does the GM do things deterministically? That's the same as having a movement table or some such.

- Does the GM favor those who are winning? Those who play best? Those who play worst? Those who he wants to sleep with?

I think you figure out how communications can break and make the game be about that.

[Harlequin]

Yah - the GM trying to cover two roles as 'antagonist' and 'randomizer' at once.  What you're looking for is decidedly not the game where a failure to command someone automatically results in them doing the worst possible thing.  (Or is it?  That could be spooky.)  Tricky role mix, as ever, best handled by splitting the jobs up more or else setting down some guidelines.  The abovementioned wargame handles it fine because it's a two-person wargame; you give the other player constraints on how many decisions (off of a checklist that's there already) he makes on behalf of your "uncontrolled" units, and away you go.

Inclined to suggest something resembling Fvulminata's intrigue system... Tell me a way that Ned could crack, a way he could fail to help, and a way he could shine.  Roll (modified by leadership), one of those comes true.

[Tobias]

Well, you could always, in a RPG, have all characters able of the 'bare bones' stuff (so that they don't feel deprotagonised), but any 'additional' stuff is gained through 'boosts' provided through communication with others.

(Where 'order' is a type of 'boost').

[Harlequin]

True 'nuff.

In fact you could probably steal a Mountain Witch style trick, and make those boosts essentially necessary.  If you wanted to tangle it, make the bonus dependent on a clear statement of your place in the hierarchy (giving or receiving orders), and then let the GM pressure that hierarchy into instability.

[Shreyas Sampat]

Simple addon to a conflict mechanic:

You have a graph (in the sense of a set of nodes and edges) that represents the relationships between a group of factions in conflict; nodes that have shorter paths connecting them are more closely related. These can be anything you can think of, like martial arts traditions or courtly cliques or closely related but fractious language communities.

Example: The "Five Animal Styles" of Shaolin are all connected to one another by paths of length 1. They're connected to Rainbow Kirin Dance and Exploding Dragon Style by paths of length 2.

The length of the path between nodes sets the minimum stakes of a productive conflict between members of the nodes. So, in the context of DitV, a conflict between monks practicing Leopard and Mantis of Shaolin could be resolved by words, but a conflict between exponents of Crane of Shaolin and Exploding Dragon Style has to escalate to blows before anyone can accomplish anything.