better... ensnare... most... of them? Alpha

An interesting request came across my feed earlier.  Someone wanted a TTRPG for Pokemon.  Now, I wouldn't ever use someone else's intellectual property for personal gain, but Pokemon had a lot of elements that made it popular back in the day.  If we take those elements and made a new game, that might be entertaining.


Basically, we will be making a game where the player controls a team of monsters.  Each monster should have some stats, a type, possibly a sub-type, and up to four moves.  With the right dressing, this should be all we need for a complete game.

Base System (The frame)

I'm going to want a fairly simple system to base mine off from.  After all, we could be creating hundreds of unique monsters for the game, and it's just a fun project.  I'm not going to be too concerned with realism or simulationism.  I advocate for keeping things as simple as possible, but I honestly can't think of a single reason to make this crunchy.

not what I'm looking for

The system should have an open game license (OGL).  First, this is the most ethical option.  An OGL means that the system developers have given you permission to develop.  It means you can potentially profit from your work, and it means that others can develop for your system  I feel pretty strongly about playing systems with an OGL, but that is a tale for another time.

Given all of this I choose Microlite 20 (found here) to serve as our frame.  Thanks, Donjon.

Building it up

Our base system has three (Strength,Dexterity,Mind) stats.  The concept has five (attack, defense, special attack, special defense, speed).  I'm not looking to reproduce their work, just create a compelling game with some similar elements.  I'll stick with the base games three, but rename them to attack, defense, and speed. This represents the fact that I'm not really interested in these monsters minds, just what they can do, and how fast they are.  I'll say that there are 6 points to be spread between all attributes.

remember, keep it simple!

Each monster will have up to 4 moves.  Moves deal damage, heal damage, improve stats, or decrease stats.  We're going to gut the rest of the system and install a type/subtype system.  The type will provide a stat bonus, subtype will not.  Both type and subtype determine what moves a monster can use, and determine the monster's weaknesses. each monster will have 3 hp plus one per two defense points.  Ac is determined by adding twice defense plus ten, attack bonus is twice attack, and all attacks start of dealing 1 point of damage.

Finishing it off

What's left is to define the specifics.  Generate lists of moves, monsters, weaknesses, and stat blocks.  With just a few monsters, we'd be able to run a game.  For this example, I'll make three monsters.   I'll use the types fire, water, and plant.  Plant deals double damage to water, water deals double damage to fire, and fire deals double damage to plant.  I'm most familiar with pathfinder, and it has an OGL, so I'll pull monsters from there.

I decide on you, water snake dragon

TL;DR-Core Rules:

Stats: There are three base stats, attack, defense, and speed. you have 6 points, distribute them how you would like.  Attack and defense are pretty self-explanatory, and speed determines who goes first.


Type and Subtype: Type provides a small bonus to a stat, determines a weakness (take double damage from that source) and what moves a monster can use (it can use moves matching that type).  Subtype adds another weakness but allows the monster to also use moves of that type.  If a monster does not have a subtype it is considered to have a basic subtype, for which there is no weakness.


Attack Bonus: Twice Attack attribute


Armor Class: Twice defense plus ten.


Attacks: unless otherwise noted all attacks deal one damage


Hit Points: Hit points is equal to three plus one for every two points of defense.


Combat: To start combat the player chooses a monster to play first.  The monster with the highest speed goes first.  On his turn a player may switch monsters, direct his monster to attack, use an item, or try to run away from a monster if there is no player controlling it.  To run away roll an opposed speed check (1d20+twice speed) if you succeed you get away. If not your turn is over.  When a monster's hp reaches zero it passes out, and the player chooses another monster to battle.  When either party has no more monsters to choose from the combat ends.


Experience: One combat gives one experience for the player.  Every monster who participated in combat receives one experience point, and a bonus experience point if they were the only one that participated in that combat.  A player may only control a monster his level or lower and may spend ten experience to gain one level.  A monster may spend five experience to gain one level and increases two different ability scores by one.

Specific Monsters

Leshi(level one)
Type: plant (weakness fire, plus one defense)
Attack:2  Defense:4 Speed:1
AC: 18
Attack: +4
HP: 5
Moves: Lash(plant): deals one damage
at level three leshi learns leech(plant), which heals 2 hp, but can only be used once every three rounds

Fire Spirit(level one)
Type: fire (weakness water, plus one attack)
Attack:4  Defense:1 Speed:2
AC: 12
Attack: +8
HP: 3
Moves:Coal(fire): deals one damage
at level three fire spirit learns burn(fire), which deals no damage, but deals one damage every round after that.

Water Elemental(level one)
Type: water (weakness plant, plus one speed)
Attack:1  Defense:2 Speed:4
AC: 14
Attack: +2
HP: 4
Moves:Undertow(water): deals one damage
at level three water elemental slow(water), which reduces the target's speed by 5 until the end of combat.


This is an alpha release. Largely I'm sharing this to illustrate how to build a system.  If it intrigues you I'd like to have you play it and tell me what you think.  It still needs work, and needs to be fleshed out, so I appreciate any feedback.

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The Game Mechanic

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Rock fall, you die. A case study

Recently I posted a blog titled The rules don't need to make sense, and I got some interesting feedback.  One articulate gentleman(Thane Allgood) posted.

Yes and no. A degree of believably and consistency is needed for suspension of disbelief.

For instance, falling rules in PF state that you take 1D6 damage per 10' you fall downward, then you compare that to the falling object rules which instead base damage on size, well of you are going to do that, why doesn't the larger object also take that same amount of damage from the fall as opposed to the lesser 1D6 per 10'? Otherwise, why take the size into account at all?

Then there is the fact that falling damage doesn't take into account distance 'thrown', I can have a character flung 50' forward, but only cover 5' in a downward direction in that same distance, and they take no damage at all according to RAW.

None of these things lend to suspension of disbelief which is why we play role playing games to begin with, as we play them to relate to a specific role in someway or to escape completely in an immersive way, if we cant do that, then we are playing a game of glorified math.

Another thing I would like to note is that simplicity does not always denote 'fun', complexity, when injected correctly and to the right degree provide for the dynamics of story and for dynamic mechanics within a system. Oversimplified and uniform systems fail (see D&D 4th ed) because they lack dynamics, where as Simplified and dynamic combination and choice complexity (like savage worlds) leads for successful and fun games. Pathfinder suffers from overt complexity, which could be streamlined very well, and they may ultimately need to do a PF 2.0 at some point to do this, but they still maintain the degree of fun needed to keep people interested.

 

For those interested, I have gone out of my way to address the falling issues myself in a simple logical manner. 

 

Based on size, starting at Tiny, you take 1 Dice step of damage for every 10' moved in any direction you cant control through an acrobatics/flight roll. Tiny takes 1D2, Small 1D4, Medium 1D6, etc. . . 

This didn't sit right with me, and I had to stew on it.  It took me a little bit to deconstruct the arguments and identify where I believe they are wrong.

What this is not.  This is not me picking on Thane Allgood.  For the record, he has provided articulate and well thought out feedback.  I cannot say that I often agree with what he has to say, but I'd loathe alienating someone who is generating useful feedback.

Discourse

So without further ado, here's the failures I identified.

A degree of believably and consistency is needed for suspension of disbelief.

This is a good point, but a nonissue for most systems.  I think this falls squarely on the game master to narrate his game in a believable way that lines up with the results of the system.  An individual may need a game system that emulates reality closely for their suspension of disbelief, but this is a subjective point.  I specifically avoid subjective arguments because there is no logical way to approach it, and categorically I can't offer a meaningful argument against or for it. 

Another thing I would like to note is that simplicity does not always denote 'fun', complexity, when injected correctly and to the right degree provide for the dynamics of story and for dynamic mechanics within a system.

Again I agree that simplicity doesn't donate fun.  I specifically made a point to say that systems should be as simple as possible.  What I failed to mention was that game systems must meet the needs of the players/game master.  I implied it but never said it.  If you need rules that are complex or even prefer them, then the system must match your needs.  I do think that there is no reason for making a system more complex than it must be.

This dude is a rock star

And now for physics, imparting damage

It turns out that I'm a math/science nerd. It also turns out that some of the people that helped craft d&d were too.  This is evident in a bunch of places.  You can specifically see it in the spell polar ray.  You see a polar ray is an element of calculus, used in integration if I remember correctly.  I digress...

Damage is roughly equivalent to force.  All things being equal, a knife stroke deals more damage if it has more force behind it.  This is a very useful thing to understand because physics has a pretty good handle on force.  As you probably know force equals mass times acceleration.

I could go in more depth here, but suffice to say that the force an object can impart on another object is equal to the mass times the deceleration of the first object.  The higher the velocity, the more potential for deceleration, the more potential for force transfer, or as we stated, damage.  Isn't physics fun?

It also turns out that terminal velocity is about 53 meters per second.  Given that acceleration is 9.8m/s^2 it takes less than 6 seconds for an object to reach terminal velocity.  In less than a round the object will go as fast as it can go.  It will have achieved the highest potential for damage due to acceleration and thus, the only thing that matters is the mass or size of the object.   There are other factors, and yes distance falling would ultimately decide actual velocity and force transferred, but it's a close approximation.  I think for most people it's close enough that they don't care, but I can't account for people like Thane Allgood who think it isn't close enough.

This lady better have boots of the cat

Physics redux, receiving damage

For the most part, damage received from a free fall is calculated for a small or medium character, because chiefly it is these characters that will be of note in the game.  Objectively you could identify different damage categories for different sized creatures that would more closely mimic real life.  To your credit, the size system is concerning, to say the least.  Gargantuan creatures can only take a 5-foot step, falling damage, abysmal movement speed, a lot of the rules don't translate well for size.  I think that introducing damage categories based on size for free fall needlessly complicates a part of the game that isn't often explored.  That's my subjective opinion, so if you want to rock your rules, more power to you. 

The one part that sticks out like a sore thumb, however, is taking horizontal movement into account when calculating damage.  The reason it doesn't make sense is because of the force thing.  Often times being moved horizontally causes no, or negligible damage to a person.  They are able to break, and disperse the force into friction (heat energy).  While they take more than none, realistically falling 10 feet is not equivalent to being thrown 10 feet because the deceleration of being thrown is much more gradual, meaning that the damage is smaller.

Conclusion

I like some of your concepts,  but I can't say I agree with the end result.  It does point out some flaws in the pathfinder/d&d system with falling, but ultimately the purposed changes fail to "enhance" my games.  Thanks for the feedback.

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The game mechanic
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The tear down, alignment, how to use it, if you must.

In tear down articles I talk about some construct in game(s).  I point out what's wrong with it, why, and my approximation on how to fix it.

"That's not what your character would do," the game master states.  I was half way through stealing bread for starving orphans with my lawful good paladin.  It isn't?  I thought that my tenants as a protector of the innocent meant that I did what it takes to help them. I'm also stealing from someone who can afford it.  I'd pay if I could, but I can't and these children are going to die.  You don't think my character, whose brother starved to death, wouldn't do anything to help these children?  "He can, but," the game master says with a wicked little grin, "he'll fall."

It fits, right?

The player would eventually lose this discussion.  Not because he's without points, but because they won't convince the game master.  Recently a bunch of you got all up in arms because of a post Ed the Bard made.  Now while I can't say I disagree with Ed here, I can say that there is a better way to do alignment, without tossing it all together .

The Good

Alignment is a fairly straight forward flavor concept.  Generally, where does your character fall, law or chaos, good or evil?  because neither is a choice we introduce neutral into each set.  this gives us 9 discrete Alignments.  It's a pretty simple concept.  As you know I'm a fan of simple.  It allows for some spells and abilities that punish the wicked and benefit the righteous (or vice versa) which I can't really fault.

The Bad

This is a flavor idea.  A flavor idea that has a mechanic tied to it.  Which means it's destined for failure.  Are you telling me neutral gods don't have paladins, that monks have to believe in the rule of law, and that barbarians can't.  This seems pretty silly to me.  What I think you mean to say is in your setting all these things are true.  That's something I can't argue with because It represents an opinion for which there isn't an objective counter.  Sure, I might think it's problematic for a host of reasons, but I can't really argue that you like it for your setting.

The Ugly

you better fit in one of these boxes...

Another troublesome implication is that you're trying to pidgeon hole your players in these roles. Although I note that maybe a good or evil campaign can be fun,  undue fettering of a players creativity sucks a little bit of fun out of the campaign for them.  When players aren't having fun they are less expressive and the whole game suffers.

The Fix

So you've determined that you like alignment.  It provides your game with some good structures, and you enjoy the flavor.  Categorically I can't argue with any of this.  This first thing you have to realize is that the alignments aren't discrete.   That is to say, there are points that lawful good's actions are exactly the same as neutral good, or lawful neutral.  It's not that they just get along, sometimes they have the same exact prerogative as their neighbors.  I think this is fairly intuitive, but basically, it's less of a chart of alignments and more of a series of Venn diagrams.  Even then they exist as a sort of probability field with ninety percent or so of the alignments behavior falling in the field and the rest of it could be found anywhere else.

standard alignment distribution

Another thing to consider is that acting evil doesn't make you evil.  I mean if it becomes a habit then you might start considering that person evil, but we all have that friend that is a good guy but has some deep character flaws.  Maybe your paladin became a vampire.  Would he automatically become evil because he thirsts for blood?  I don't think so.  I think he could even feed and he wouldn't be evil per se.  What if he feeds on someone his god demands be punished, to death.  Waste not, want not, right?  Which leads us to my next point.

evil is as evil does

Alignments are highly subjective.  The cat might appear evil to the mouse, but the cat is just seeking a meal.  Would this make him evil?  Although I could entertain hours of philosophical debate on the topic, the fact is that the alignment system is meant to summarize societies general views.  It's generally evil to murder someone, and generally lawful to bring the murder to justice, but there really isn't any hard or fast rules.

To this end, if you must, I suggest tying alignment to an organization and a specific set of tenets that organization has.  This allows for a more black and white viewing of alignment.  If your holy order says it's evil to wear a fish on your head, then they can believe that, and it isn't up for debate.  I still suggest stripping alignment from character classes, but you can leave it for magic items, and possibly feats.  What's cooler than a holy sword that smites evil and won't allow an evil person to wield it?

These organizations could be places that the classes generally come from.  Ninty-five percent of paladins might come from the holy order of not stealing things, but exceptions should exist.  You could also live in a campaign where paladins who didn't belong to the holy order of not stealing things were seen as heretics and as such persecuted on the spot because of a corrupt government.  I digress, but the point is that if my paladin from above belonged to the holy order of not stealing things and he chooses to steal he could face some real consequences that the player knew was coming.  He chose to steal, he knew the repercussions, and now he's a pariah.  I think that's a much better story than your god won't let you, or you immediately fall.

you knew this was going to happen

Notice how stealing in this example doesn't change his alignment.  I think there is a good argument for a lawful character stealing if another component of his character demands it.  It might not affect his alignment at all, especially if he choose to turn himself in.  Even if it does affect his alignment it should push him towards chaos, not necessarily change his alignment.  If has been acting chaotically for a while, then maybe it's time to talk with the player and bring it up.  It might be time to shift that characters alignment.

As always
keep those games rolling
the Game Mechanic

Rules don't need to make sense

You're playing your weekly session when Larry starts complaining again.  "I just don't think the crafting rules make any sense, that's not how it works." You see, Larry recently took up blacksmithing, so he has real world experience with crafting weapons and armor.  Larry knows the rules don't mimic the process he's being taught, and he wants to change the rules to mirror reality.  As Larry drones on and on about hammers, anvils, and forges you realize something. The heck of it is he's right, but it doesn't matter.  At all.

roll to heat to exactly 858 degrees...

With all the talk I have been doing lately about the rules, I think it's important to outline some of the structures that make good rules.  It'd be helpful to point out, in my approximation, past failures of game systems, and how to fix them.  Without further ado;

1) Rules should be Intuitive.

This is why THAC0 was such a failure in overall design.  I mean feel free to like their system, or even love THAC0 yourself, but if you do love these things I'm going to hand you a battered gamers pamphlet, with all the local shelters listed, in case a "friend" needs it.

For those of you not familiar, THAC0 stood for ToHitArmorClass0 and was the primary mechanic by which 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.  The lower your THAC0 the better you were at combat.  Which is counter intuitive. Bigger is better, right?  Not for THAC0.  So, as a new player, you're probably going to mess this up a lot.

I'm sure your bonus to hit is "adequate"

Intuitive rules are easier to memorize. Your brain recognizes the information as making sense.  Maybe you have lots of space in your brain to throw away because you never bother to memorize anything else, or have a massive amount of storage, but the rest of us would rather use that space for other things.  Which leads me to my next point.

2) Rules should be simple

Simple rules are easy to remember.  If you remember the rules you're less likely to make a mistake, and less likely to stop to have to look up rules.  You're also less likely, as the GM, to make a ruling that contradicts the rules, disrupting the game.  Any time spent fiddling with the rules, while you should be playing, is a waste of valuable game time.

There is a balance between simplicity and player agency.  More complex rules can give a player an idea of how to play.  Explicit rules help shape gameplay in the same way that ingrained flavor can give a player a place to start with his character concept.  A good example of this is when we compare Cortex plus heroic and Pathfinder.  Pathfinder has explicit rules for almost anything.  You want to build a settlement, they got that.  Want rules on friendships and bonds, got that too.  With all the material Paizo puts out each month gives players lots of ideas on what to do.  Some GM's may rule against certain supplements, but they exist as a reference point for many games.

Cortex Plus Heroic, on the other hand, has only a few rules.  Most of the players handbook has to do with how to make your character.  You describe your actions, then pick the stats that match and roll it all up, pick out your best dice, and away you go. While I've never had to stop to look up rules to Cortex Plus Heroic the system really isn't set up for anything except combat(social, mental, or physical).  There aren't rules for a lot of things, and I've seen new players flounder because they're not sure what to do.  The most common question is "what do I do?" and the answer is "whatever makes sense."  Which makes us sound like sarcastic ass hats.

dammit, no more dad jokes

The problem here is that the player is often informed by the game system of the actions they may take.  These actions often fall into fairly discrete categories.  I swing my sword, shoot my bow, or chop with my ax.  In this version of cortex heroic, this just isn't so.  I leap into the air and fire my eye beams could include a plethora of mechanics that then could do various types of damage.  I could use the eye beams to scare my opponent, or I could hit them to damage them.  Does my super leaping help in this endeavor?  It very well could if you're trying to scare your opponent, but really doesn't help in damaging him.  It turns out that a simplicity of rules often translates into a complexity of action.

The rules should, then, be reasonably simple.  While I don't advocate going full larp, I would say needlessly complex rules are... needless?  How complex or simple will vary from group to group, and is something for you and yours to settle on.

3) Reality is Complex

Reality is far too complex.  I mean some things are simple, like the velocity of a free falling object (about 32 feet/second^2).  Other than that things get pretty hairy pretty quick.  Like those silly butterfly's causing hurricanes(chaos theory).  Look at any combat system.  If you have any experience in any martial art you know they aren't accurate.  They were never meant to be, and don't need to be accurate.  It's often best if they abandon that idea altogether.

this is simple, right?

For example, often enough there is a news story of someone getting stabbed upwards of 100 times.  Do you know any good systems that support low-level characters being stabbed hundreds of times?  I don't.  In fact in Dungeons and Dragons attacks do a minimum of 1 point of nonlethal damage.  Once you accrue an amount of nonlethal damage equal to your hit points you start taking lethal damage.  This essentially means that that nonlethal damage is about half a point of damage.  Even with this adjustment I can't think where a low-level character can absorb that much damage and survive.

It's much easier to assign some hit point value, an ac, and a to hit bonus.  We encapsulate and simulate most of the complex combat variables in this system.  Sure it doesn't match up one to one, but we don't need it to.  It's a game, not a reality simulation.

Conclusion

I want you to make better games

If we accept that rules need to be simple as possible and intuitive we realize that we can't have them mimic reality accurately.  Reality is comfortable, it's what we're used to, so rules should remind us of reality.  I can't tell you what system to play, or where the balance should lie. what I can tell you is you shouldn't add needless complexity to your game. This might occur through homebrew rules, third party supplements, or even core sources if they fail to enhance your game.

As always
Keep those games rolling
The game mechanic