Come, enjoy my tasty dice mechanics with hot baked stones!

[LizardLips]

I've been working on game for a while now and its becoming fairly complex. Before I continue I was hoping you guys could look over a few chunks of my game and give me some feedback.

Characters have Traits and Skills. Traits are simply general descriptions of the character (Strong, Smart, Slow, Cowardly, etc.), while Skills are types of actions a character can take along with a numerical rating from 0 to 6. A sample character might look like this:
Strong, Agile, Naive
Fighting 4
Shooting 3
Athletics 3  

To overcome a challenge the character rolls 1d6 and compares it to the relevant skill. If he rolls under his skill rating he succeeds, with a number of successes equal to the number rolled (ala Blackjack). If he can use one of his Traits he rolls an additional d6, adding together any success into one total. A resource mechanic limits the number of times a character can apply any given Trait during a session.


The central idea behind the game is position. Am I being attacked? Are my defenses strong enough? Are my enemies defenses too strong for me to attack? Can I reposition myself to get around his defenses? Will my repositioning expose myself to attack?

Much like rock/paper/scissors, the modes a character can pick from when performing an action are mutually exclusive, strong against one mode, and weak against the remaining mode. In short: Defense beats Attack, Position beats Defense, and Attack beats Position. These modes can be applied to lots of different sorts of conflict, but to keep things simple lets stick to a combat example for now.

Before a combat round begins, each player secretly assigns a mode for his character. On their turn they reveal their mode (represented by colored stones. Red for Attack, Blue for Defense, Green for Position) and take their action, rolling against the relevant skill, adding a die for a useful Trait if desired. If he is competing against another character (attacking someone, trying to flank an opponent for better position, or defending against an attack) he checks his method (the colored stone) against his opponents. If one of the competing characters picked a method that "beats" his opponent's, he gets an additional die. (A minor quirk in the rules here. A character who used the Position method and receives this additional die may save it to use later since Position actions rarely allow a character to damage an opponent.)

An example of play. Two space marines are attacking an alien bug. The round begins with all three assigning stones. Marine A goes first, but decides to cover his comrade. He declines to act yet, and doesn't reveal his stone.

Marine B reveals a green Position stone. His character swings wide around the bug in an attempt to flank it, hoping that it sits tight in defense. On the bugs turn it reveals a Red attack stone. If it had been a Blue defense stone, Marine B would've received a bonus die for his flanking maneuver. Instead it's the bug who receives an additional die as it springs to attack. Luckily for Marine B, Marine A was holding his action. Marine A decides to act now and reveals a Blue defense stone, gaining him an additional die against the bug's Red attack.

Marine A rolls 2d6 (one default, one for his winning method) against his Shooting skill of 3. The dice come up a 1 and 2, both successes for a total of 3. The bug rolls a single die against its Athletics of 5, getting a 6 for a total of 0 successes. Marine A blasts the bug, saving Marine B.  

I can already see numerous small problems, but I'd like to get feedback on the base mechanic, the use of methods (Attack, Defense, Position), and statistical analysis. Is this dice mechanic fast? Does it allow interesting and tactical play?

[LordSmerf]

I'm confuse on an issue:  If you pick the wrong "stance" to you automatically fail?  Or do you just not get extra dice?

Thomas

[LizardLips]

You just don't get extra dice. If your opponent picked the right stance, he gets an extra die. If you both pick the same stance its a wash, and neither party gets an extra die.

Both parties roll a die. The side that won the "stance" comparison gets a bonus die. Compare totals, ignoring any dice that roll over the skill being used. Higher total wins.

[Ben Lehman]

Hi:
Do be aware that RPS is not tactically meaningful, except on a purely psychological level.
If you are not trying to achieve tactical meaning, ignore this post.

[LizardLips]

Hmm.. ok, I can see that RPS is purely random. What I like about it is

1) Relying on one strategy will lead to defeat. There's a balance among the three attacks.
2) Its quick. You don't need to do any calculations.

What I'm trying to simulate is this: In a conflict the defender typically has an advantage. It takes a lot of energy for an attacker to overcome an entrenched defender. An attacker can choose to throw everything he's got at a defender, or he can try to gain a better position. While he's trying to gain a better position he needs to make sure the defender stays stuck in his old defensive posture. If the defender realizes he's being outmaneuvered, he can switch to a different position or even make a preemptive strike with an attack of his own while the original attacker is off balance.

To avoid being outmaneuvered, the defender needs to spend time and resources looking for possible threats. But how much time? How many resources? As both sides try to gain an advantage over the other a lot of decisions crop up. I like that. Its the maneuvering, the recon and investigation, the resource allocation that I'm trying to encourage. Nobody needs another game where the two sides slug it out.

I also think this model can be applied to non-combat situations, from hostile takeovers of a company to Billy asking his dad to borrow the car on Saturday night.

Thanks for the replies so far. Its helping me focus on what the essentials for my game will be.

[DevP]

I like the pure mechanic. (Although its a minor change, counting the margin of success black-jack-wise is kinda faster.) I can understand how extra dice represent tactical advantage or expenditure of raw ability (in both cases, the more skilled person can exploit these better).

Although I like the simplicity of the Def/Att/Pos thing, when you get a bonus die for a winning Defensive/Positional maneuver, what is that die roll for? Is Marine A getting a bonus die roll for an attack this turn, or a positional maneuver this turn? Is said maneuver an attack, or does success there make subsequent attack easier (essentially getting his bonus die for next turn)? Perhaps this bonus die should simply come into play on the next round; the tactical choices they make this round will influence what they do the next.

(Also, Marine A holding his action as in the example is problematic, but I was assuming you had some other thoughts on that.)

[Lance D. Allen]

Hm. I have little enough to add, but this mechanic intrigues me. My question is about how "initiative" is determined. You stated in the example that Marine A got first action, but he declined to act. How was it determined that he got the first action?

Also, looking over the example, I'm uncertain of who's attacking who. Marine B is attacking no one at this point, as he is trying to flank the bug. Who is the bug attacking? If the bug attacks Marine B, then Marine A's action, coming last (or is resolution in reverse order? If that's the case, then last declaration would seem to be the most advantageous) wouldn't be in time to save Marine B. Likewise it wouldn't make sense for him to get a defensive bonus when he's not being attacked.

On the other hand, if the defensive bonus is granted on the premise that his "team" is being attacked, then you've got a whole other complication. What if it had been two bugs, one attacking, one defending? Would the one defending (call it Bug B) get a bonus if Bug A was attacked? Would Marine B get a bonus for attempting to flank Bug A? Is Bug A getting a bonus for attacking Marine B, and would he get the same bonus if he attacked Marine A, because of Marine B's flanking maneuver? On the whole, I think it'd be much simpler to deal with bonuses on an individual basis. Marine A gets no bonus because the bug isn't attacking him, but he does get to defensively fire on the bug who's attacking his buddy.

Just my two creds.

[LizardLips]

Thanks for the replies guys. Sorry about the confusion... I'm still trying to work out the details myself.

In real life, a lot of resources must be spent to 'cover your flanks'. That doesn't happen so much in the games I've played since weak points can be determined on a player's individual initiative and addressed immediately. I'm trying to encourage forethought in the players so that they need to watch their flanks, avoid overextending themselves, etc.

For the initiative in the example above I was figuring on using a simple 'roll to see who goes first' method, or by comparing speed attributes.

Currently rolls are a little abstract representing combatants shooting, taking cover, etc. The bonus dice don't reflect discreet "aiming bonuses" or anything, more like broad situational bonuses. A defender has better cover, good fields of fire, pre-prepared sights, etc. which result in a bonus die when he's attacked. On the other hand he can be flanked, surrounded and demoralized, giving an enemy using Position on him a bonus die.

Actions would are decided and compared individually. In the example Marine B is trying to flank the bug. If he succeeds he'll get a bonus die he can keep an use later. The bug has already declared an Attack action before the turn. When the bug goes he HAS to attack, but he can choose WHO to attack.

Its a gamble since Marine A is defending. If both Marines had declared defenses they'd both get bonus dice when the Bug attempted its attack. If there had been two bugs they'd each compare their actions individually.

I've also thought of a couple variations on this 'pre selecting actions' theme. One is that only groups decide an action. A squad of ten men might be given an attack action by their Lieutenant. The Lt. could also divide his force, assigning half his squad under the direction of the squad sergeant to get a better Position while the other half maintained a Defensive perimeter. This might be quicker and less confusing when comparing stones, but could put a lot of power/responsibility in the hand of a single player.

Just had a thought. What if a commander recieved a number of stones based on his situation. If his men have hig morale and are ready for a fight they'd get a lot of red stones. If they're dug in or well supplied they'd get a lot of Blue stones too. Don't really know what would garner a lot of Green stones... maybe the commander's tactics skill. Anyway, the commander selects a stone for his entire side for combat. If he divides his forces the leaders of each split force get to draw from the stone pool. As they use stones, the stones are lost. If a side runs out of stones they're morale breaks and they flee.

I've been trying to bone up on my GNS terminology... would that be considered a gamist mechanic or simulationist mechanic?

[xiombarg]

I've been trying to bone up on my GNS terminology... would that be considered a gamist mechanic or simulationist mechanic?

Mechanics are not G,N, or S -- human decisions are. No mechanic a priori corresponds to any mode.

Now, some mechanics can encourage one mode over the other, but that's in conjunction with the rest of the system.  But in terms of encouraging one mode or another, one can't even make that qualified judgement with an isolated mechanic like this one.

That said, I have to say that not being able to strategize at all (except in a psyche-out sense) seems somewhat anti-Gamist, but even that depends a lot on context.

[Valamir]

I like the concept of ADP ALOT.

But as has been pointed out right now its just RPS and there is no real tactics to it.  You could file the Attack, Defense, Position names off them and just call them the colors and it works the same.  In other words, it simply boils down to a guessing game, ala Vincini's poison.

What you need to make this work is a way to add more actual meaningful choices and (depending on whether you want to emphasis player skill or character skill) a way to bring character ability into the equation.

One off the cuff, thought is to add "fatigue" as a quantity.  Then allow the players to abort their choice of color die once they see what the opponent has done, but to do so earns a point of fatigue.  Fatigue being bad, there is now a choice between going for the short term 1d6 advantage and paying the long term cost of accumulating fatigue.  The opponent similary can take fatigue to abort and change and back and forth, with the stones providing a narrative aid in describing what's going on.

You can then bring character ability into play by giving "free aborts".  The character with the "highly observant" trait can get one free abort of his current stance to a neutral stance.  The character with the "Aggressive nature" trait can get one free abort to the Attack stance.  The character with the "cautious" trait can get one free abort to the Defense stance.  A character who is "overly cautious" must pay take extra fatigue to ever abort out of the Defense stance.

Fatigue then can simply give penalty dice after accumulating to a given threshold.  The threshhold should probably be something like whatever trait or skill most represents professional behavior in the given situation.  In a combat situation that would be some trait/skill related to being a trained, disciplined, professional soldier.  In a hospital ER that would be some trait/skill related to being a trained, professional doctor.

You can tack on all sorts of chrome and fiddly bits, but I think something like this is needed to take the idea out of the RPS guessing game.

[Halzebier]

Hi:
Do be aware that RPS is not tactically meaningful, except on a purely psychological level.
If you are not trying to achieve tactical meaning, ignore this post.

Yes. One might add that if you go for RPS, it's advisable to have each option yield different benefits (e.g. winning with rocks is best). This adds more psychological depth. There's a nice link on this topic over here:

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_rps.htm

(There are other nice essays on game design there, albeit computer game design.)

Regards,

Hal

[Ben Lehman]

One might add that if you go for RPS, it's advisable to have each option yield different benefits (e.g. winning with rocks is best). This adds more psychological depth. There's a nice link on this topic over here:

http://www.sirlin.net/Features/feature_rps.htm

(There are other nice essays on game design there, albeit computer game design.)

BL>  As much as I respect Sirlin, I have to disagree with him on this one.  I think that the reason RPS fighting games are interesting, this interest has much more to with the fact that there are "edge effects" to R, P, and S (so my Rock move also allows me to cover ground, or has a slow windup but a large range), and that position on the playing field itself has tactical value.

Tactical value is a difficult puppy to nail down.  It's clear that some things have it (Riddle of Steel, Chess, Go, Warhammer) and some things don't (RPS, Odds and Evens, Dice-Offs, any admixture thereof) but it is unclear what, precisely, conveys it.  I think it is a mixture of elements that provides it.  Would be worth spinning off into a Game Theory thread.

Sadly, this doesn't help poor LizardLips with his game design.  Which I'm about to try to do.

Hmm.. ok, I can see that RPS is purely random. What I like about it is

1) Relying on one strategy will lead to defeat. There's a balance among the three attacks.
2) Its quick. You don't need to do any calculations.

BL>  Well yes.  But since RPS and dice-rolling are both random, you might as well just roll the RPS challenge into the dice roll and be done with it.
 "Relying on one strategy" is totally beside the point, because these aren't strategies, simply values.  What this translates to is "roll 1d3, if you roll a 1 you get a bonus, if you roll a 3 your opponent gets a bonus."  This is not strategy at all.

What I'm trying to simulate is this: In a conflict the defender typically has an advantage. It takes a lot of energy for an attacker to overcome an entrenched defender. An attacker can choose to throw everything he's got at a defender, or he can try to gain a better position. While he's trying to gain a better position he needs to make sure the defender stays stuck in his old defensive posture. If the defender realizes he's being outmaneuvered, he can switch to a different position or even make a preemptive strike with an attack of his own while the original attacker is off balance.

BL>  Now, this is a noble goal.
 Let's look at this.  You have three options during combat.
1) Defend.
2) Attack.
3) Manuever.

For these to have any meaningful value, they need to represent in game their respective situations.  Let's go one at a time (blatantly ripped off from Riddle of Steel here).
1) Defend allows you to defend.  Simple.  If both players throw defend, nothing happens.  Start the round over.  
2) Attack allows you to attack.  If both players attack, things get very messy quickly.
3) Maneuver.  If both players manuever, it is a draw (see defend.)  If you manuever and the other guy defends, you can build up dice in a "maneuver pool" which adds to your next attack or defense.  If you manuever and the other guy attacks, you not only lose all dice in your manuever pool, your attacker gains a bonus.

Now, this is a sizably different situation.  I'm not ready to say it's tactical yet (I'd need to play a few rounds first) but at least the three stances are sizably different.

To avoid being outmaneuvered, the defender needs to spend time and resources looking for possible threats. But how much time? How many resources? As both sides try to gain an advantage over the other a lot of decisions crop up. I like that. Its the maneuvering, the recon and investigation, the resource allocation that I'm trying to encourage. Nobody needs another game where the two sides slug it out.

BL>  This is, again, a noble goal, but not resolved at all by the present system.  Have you looked at Riddle of Steel?

yrs--
--Ben

[Mike Holmes]

Tactical value is a difficult puppy to nail down. It's clear that some things have it (Riddle of Steel, Chess, Go, Warhammer) and some things don't (RPS, Odds and Evens, Dice-Offs, any admixture thereof) but it is unclear what, precisely, conveys it. I think it is a mixture of elements that provides it. Would be worth spinning off into a Game Theory thread.

Game Theory says only some really basic things here. A Strategy is defined as a set of moves that can be applied to gain advantage in specific circumstances. For a game to have an Optimum Strategy at any given point, you have to have some knowledge of the circumstances in order to make the analysis required. RPS has no Open Knowledge, as the only consideration is the other player's throw, and you have to make your decision before knowing what the other player is doing. When this is the case, it's said that the best strategy is a Mixed Strategy, which means essentially being random, and therfore unpredictable. As soon as you try to employ any other strategy, you become more predictable, and your opponent can then start to use other strategies themselves.

Given that combat is random, this seems to me to be a cool idea, as it makes the combat still seem random, while actually keepoing the choice in the player's hands. That is, I think it's better than rolling a d3 to see which character gets the bonus die.

Further, some players are incapable, or unwilling to play a Mixed Strategy. Which means that strategy does claw its way back in. RPS players will tell you that there's a lot of strategy in trying to determine what the opponent's throw will be, etc. Debatable, but it's certainly possible.

Like I said, pretty basic stuff.

That said, I personally agree that purely Hidden Information games are pretty dull. I'd attach some other stakes to each option to make for more comlex strategies personally. Again, all assuming that strategy is something that's sought here.

Mike

[Ben Lehman]

Game Theory says only some really basic things here.

BL>  Oops.  I meant "RPG Theory."
My face is red.

Given that combat is random, this seems to me to be a cool idea, as it makes the combat still seem random, while actually keepoing the choice in the player's hands. That is, I think it's better than rolling a d3 to see which character gets the bonus die.

BL>  I don't see how there is any "choice" in the player's hands.  The decision is, for all intents and purposes, entirely arbitrary -- leaving it up to "decision" just takes time away from gameplay.  Now, I can deal with slower resolution mechanics if they add something to gameplay, but given a choice between two statistically identical mechanics -- one fast, one slow -- I'll take the fast one.

yrs--
--Ben

[greyorm]

LizardL,

I read this and like it. But it seems, to me, as though it is missing something. You'd mentioned a need for tactics to be included, regarding characters "watching their flanks" and such.

I'm reminded of a mechanical design proposed on the RPG-Create mailing list some time back, which involved the use of pools of dice -- you would devote so many of your dice to an action, such as defense, saving the rest for other actions like attacking, dodging, moving or whatever.

Of course, when you ran out of dice, you were screwed, and if you spent too many dice on one item, you would suffer later...of course, if you spent too few dice, then you were equally as bad off.

Hrm, I think this was it, but there may another I am thinking of:

I thought I'd come up with a more abstract combat system. I like the idea of map and counters for dungeon  exploration and puzzle solving, so I want to keep that, but I want a combat system that resolves off of the map. The players still narrate the game in the context of the map's contents, but there's no token micro-management.

Mechanics:

Before each combat round begins, determine how the participants are squared off. Some "actual" initiative mechanics would be good here, determining how combatants pair off, if anyone is surprised, if terrain bonuses are gained, and so on.

This is a dice pool system, where each side creates two dice pools, one for attack factors and one for defense factors.

Combat factors break down as follows:

Skill: Combat skills (representing combat styles, like sword + shield, frex) contribute a number of dice equal to their ratings. The character's player determines how the skill will be divided up between the Attack and Defense. (It is permissible to allocate zero dice to defense to concentrate on attack, and vice versa.)

Weapons: The rating of the character's weapon may be devoted entirely to offence, or entirely to defense (no splitting). When a weapon is devoted to defense it's rating is halved.

Shields: The rating of the character's shield may be devoted entirely to offence, or entirely to defense (no splitting). When a shield is devoted to offense it's rating is halved.

Armor: The rating of the character's armor contributes dice only to the defense pool.

Each player rolls both dice pools for his character (keeping them separate). Successes from the defense pool cancel out successes from the opponent's attack pool, and vice versa.

Uncanceled successes from the attack pool indicate damage to the opponent. (So, in each round, both participants or neither may take damage. This also allows for simultaneous kills.)

Characters who suffer damage lose a number of dice equal to the damage from their dice pools next turn. The player of the damaged character decides how the lost dice are distributed between the attack and defense pools.

When a character runs out of dice, he's out of the fight. After the combat is finished, injury rolls are made to see how hurt (if at all) "out" characters are.

Well, I think that was the design I was thinking of, but you get the point I was aiming at, I hope. Perhaps you can find something to use from therein for your own game.