today, on Mez Gives Her Opinions…

[deird1]

eleanorjane asked me to blather on about RPG systems and game design. Here goes.



So, the thing about D&D is, it was invented by wargamers. And if you try picturing it being used in a wargame, it totally makes sense. The flat D20 roll, the spell slots, the different classes… for wargaming, it works. For modern roleplaying? Not so much.

Using Dice

Rolling a single D20 gives you really flat probabilities (equal chance of getting any number on the die). That, combined with the wide 20-number spread, means that whether or not you can do an action is extremely random. (If a particular action isn’t very random, this is because the set difficulty is so high or so low that dice rolling at all is pretty pointless.)

This doesn’t represent real life very well. It also makes things much more luck-based, which makes your character’s skillset feel irrelevant.

Instead, I prefer dice rolls with bell curves, or else dice pools.

Your basic bell curve (2D6) is my go-to. It gives enough of a bias towards the middle that you have a good idea of what your character can usually handle – but it still allows for the outliers where you get a howlingly bad (or amazingly fantastic) roll. It’s also a simple enough mechanic that it basically fades into the background.

The reason I often wouldn’t go with a 2D6 system is because you’re still limited by your basic D&D mechanic of “pick an appropriate stat and an appropriate skill, and roll for the target number”. Whereas dice pools give you an excellent extra option of “yeah, I’ll throw that in too”.

I’m trying to break into this house, so I pick my Dexterity stat and my Lockpicking skill. But I’m also using my best set of lockpicks, so I’ll add an extra die for a “Favourite Tools” bonus. Plus, I’m being instructed (in whispers) by another PC, Fingers McDuff, who’s an experienced housebreaker, so he can give me a couple of extra dice as well.

Using a dice pool gives you a simple way to add extra skills, extra help, and extra complications to a roll. I don’t use it often, but in some games it’s brilliant – especially if characters are often needing to lend a hand to each other.

That Stat/Skill Breakdown

When I see a new RPG, I can tell if the creator doesn’t have much experience with games outside of D&D, because they will have the standard six stats in place (Str/Dex/Con/Int/Cha/Wis) without even considering that there are other options. (Brawn, for instance! It’s Str/Con combined!) I like seeing that a creator has put some thought into the possibilities – because, seriously, no-one is going to decide that Wisdom is really the perfect stat for their game if they’ve actually thought it through.

Far more interesting are those games that totally screw with the stat/skill thing, and come out with entirely different options.

For instance:

- I’ve seen a zombie game that had six stats (no seperate skills) – Control, Fight, Flee, Hide, Repair, Scrounge – all based on the likely options when in a zombie-infested zone.

- Lady Blackbird gives you a background (e.g. one character might be “Athletic”, a “Smuggler” and know the “Secret of Taking a Beating”) and that background tells you whether or not they’ll be able to do something.

- Lasers and Feelings gives you a single number that tells you how good/bad you are at “lasers” (sciency stuff) and simultaneously how good/bad you are at “feelings” (people stuff). You cannot be good at both.

- The Cortex Plus game for Smallville gives you “values” and “relationships”. So instead of Clark Kent maxing out his physical skills and pounding on everyone, he rolls for Justice and Friendship (Jimmy Olsen) and saves Jimmy from getting killed by mobsters.

I really enjoy games that do this sort of stuff, because it tends to bring out the flavour of the setting really well. (My in-development Stargate game, for instance, would need to have “motivations” on the character sheet, because Teal’c fighting random mooks on a random planet is going to go quite differently to Teal’c fighting Apophis’ troops.)

Ye Olde Black Magic

D&D uses spell slots. Good for wargaming, crappy for modern roleplaying. Plus, they totally ruin immersion, because there is no possible universe in which Vancian Magic is the most realistic option.

The best magic systems in RPGs all seem to do the following:
- treat it as a skill
- track how much you can do with “mana”

So you roll against Willpower (stat) + Magic (skill), and if it succeeds you take that spell’s worth of mana out of your current supply – thus handily limiting how much magic you can do per day.

It’s simple (because it’s just like every other roll you’re already doing), and it doesn’t break immersion. It’s also customisable – you can easily give extra skill points for spells you’re experienced at doing.

The BtVS RPG does it best. Because it’s the Buffyverse, there needs to be potential for the magic to backfire. So spells work like this:

Set Something on Fire Spell
roll 9 or over: You succeed.
roll 5 or under: You’re not powerful enough to get the spell going.
roll between 6 and 8: You’re powerful enough to do the magic, but not powerful enough to control it – so something else catches fire. Possibly you.

Further Reading

Honestly, I think everyone should start out by playing D&D. Even though it sucks, it gives a good basic grounding in the terms and assumptions that roleplayers are likely to work with.

But… they shouldn’t stop there. I think everyone should try out lots of different styles of RPG, so that they can get an idea of the possibilities, and a feeling for the style that really suits them.

This is what I would recommend:
- try D&D for a few sessions
- try a session of Lasers and Feelings
- try Ten Candles
- try a game where the characters are kids – like Monsters And Other Childish Things or BubbleGumshoe
- try Lady Blackbird
- then try as many different genres as you can, for shortish games

There are a ton of different options out there – many of them free – and some of them can really change your perspective of what an RPG can be.