The Role of Game Mechanics
From Tab Wiki
I spend too much time thinking about role-playing games in theory. I do so during work and during my free time, and recently--as I have done quite a few times before--I have been thinking about what elements of role-playing game mechanics I like, dislike and like only in theory. And through that, what combination of mechanics do I think would make up my idealized game system. But before I ramble on about the mechanics themselves, I find it necessary it place my opinions on such things in context, as I believe past history and social contexts tend to influence and bias almost everything everyone does.
Ok; when I first got started role-playing, I came in with a very Narrativist and minimalistic view of what a role-playing game should be: A role-playing game was a medium that a group of people could communally use to tell stories through consensus; and the rules of the game existed for the sole purpose of resolving disputes and achieving consensus among the participants. The rules were able to do this because the participants had agreed to abide by them when called upon to resolve disputes. While having a rules system that closely simulated reality might be beneficial in that it might match the assumptions the participants had in how the game world worked, having the rules system closely simulate reality was not innately beneficial.
A while back there was this little "Design a role-playing game in 24 hours" shindig and I remember the game that David came up with. The mechanics were very simple: Whenever anyone tried to do an action that could be contested, the GM called for a show of support. Every participant in the game gave the action a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. If most people favored the action, then it was a success. Consensus building boiled down to a simple vote mechanic. And thinking back to his game, I realize that in many ways his game is an embodiment of the above sentiments.
But my views a what a role-playing game should be have changed somewhat over the years. While I still hold many of the sentiments and assumptions in the view above, I find that what I want from a role-playing game has become less minimalistic--I think more out of pragmatic concern than any idealized one.
You see, for a minimalistic implementation such as that described above to be satisfactory to all of the participants, they all have to generally share the same desires for--if not the direction of the game--then at least the mood, tone and elements present in the game. Billy and Susie may both want combat action in the game, but if Susie wants epic over-the-top battles and Billy wants gritty struggles for survival, then when it comes time to resolve conflicts there's going to be a conflict beyond whether Billy lands his punch or not--a conflict in assumption that sooner or later is going to rear its ugly head. The minimalist system above provides a mechanic for resolving individual actions, but it doesn't present a mechanic for resolving differences in assumption (short of participants just arguing it out, which I feel is often an undesirable method to resolve conflicts in assumption).
That's all fine and good, but do less minimalistic systems provide a mechanic for resolving this? Well... Not explicitly. However, consider this: Take the example of D&D. In D&D, if I try to make a jump, the DC of the jump check is equal to the number of feet I need to jump. That means, assuming I'm an average guy, I could make a running jump over a 10 ft. pit roughly 50% of the time. If I'm an experienced adventurer, then I can probably leap 30 ft. pits a fair portion of the time. Now take holding your breath in D&D where a character can hold her breath a number of rounds equal to twice her Con before suffering any ill effects. That's two minutes for the averagejoe and quite possibly three or four for the experienced adventurer.
What does this have to do with anything? Do you notice it? D&D promotes an over-the-top action game. It's implicit in the mechanics from the jump check DCs to the amount of time a character can hold her breath to the combat. When in doubt, D&D sets up the mechanics in such a way for characters to be larger than life. This is something I think D&D does very well. Characters can jump farther, swim longer and take that many more hits. While it's not an explicit mechanic, it's certainly an implicit kind-of meta-mechanic in the game. And while this alone doesn't resolve conflicts in what people want from the game, it does at least put everyone on the same page on what to expect from the mechanics in this system.
I should note that this seems to be a fundamental difficulty in any system that claims to be universal. While a system might be able to emulate the powers,cliches and archetypes of any genre, many genres have lots of little assumptions that may run contrary to the game mechanics. Horror is a genre that relies heavily on character powerlessness and the fear of the unknown. Trying to run a horror game in D&D simply not going to mesh with the larger than life ass-kicking characters (except maybe as emulating thesplatterfest subgenre, if you consider that truly to be horror).
Now let me come full circle: I still assert that the purpose of the mechanics in a role-playing game is to build a consensus between the participants concerning the outcome of certain actions in-game and what happens next. But at the same time, I think it is (in-practice) necessary to do what you can through the mechanics to get everyone on the same page as to what to assume and expect. While I am not going to make any claims that is innately better to expect grittiness overepicness or sudden, quick character advancement over gradual, incremented advancement or any such thing, I do have my own preferences on such things; and that being the case, it is my intention to go over various aspects of game mechanics that I feel supports the assumptions and mood I like in role-playing games.
Universal Approach
Despite there being some fundamental problems in producing a role-playing game that is truly universal in that it can emulate any setting and genre while remaining true to that setting/genre, I nevertheless like the universal approach to role-playing mechanics. This approach allows the system to be flexible enough to deviate from what is normally assumed by a genre if desired and allows players to become familiar with the role-playing system across multiple campaigns--even if those campaigns are of different settings and genres. Universal systems either need to have an implicit mood and tone (and thus are not truly universal, but are flexible enough in this regard for my tastes) or be modular in that the system has different packages of rules (or "modes") that can be switched between as needed for the campaign.
Conflict Resolution
If the point of game mechanics are simply to achieve consensus on the result of actions so that the game can go on, then they ought to do so simply and quickly. That generally means reducing the number of necessary rolls, eliminating the need to look things up on tables in game and keeping the numbers small enough to easily be added inone's head.
I also like all actions (of any significance to merit a roll) to always have both a chance of success and failure. This increases suspense in the game honestly, if there isn't a chance of success of failure, why roll in the first place? Furthermore, I think it is important to have degrees of success or failure as part of the game mechanic. This is useful information when visualizing the events of the game and can be further used in other game mechanics.
Means to Influence Outcome of Actions
Randomness is good for increasing the uncertainty and tension in a session. There's a moment of holding your breath and waiting to see the result of the dice. But sometimes randomness sucks. It can drop characters at inopportune times and it can lead to results that are significantly less interesting than if the other result had occurred. For this reason I find it beneficial to games to have some means of influencing the outcome of such rolls.
Tactical Decision Making
Seeing your plan or tactics succeed is fun. People play role-playing games to have fun. In fact, one of their comparative advantages to other types of games (computer RPGs, etc.) is the openness of character choice and freedom in RPGs. Having tactical decision making count and make a difference in role-playing games is both fun and plays to one of role-playing game's biggest strengths. I mean this not just a move-tactically-in-combat sense (although that is included), but in a scenario planning and character interaction sense as well.
Frequent and Incremented Character Advancement
Sudden large leaps of power strike me as artificial and game-y. For example, the difference between a 1st level and 2nd level character in D&D is staggering, as their hit points double, as could their base attack bonus, skill points and general power. That stated, I tend to prefer point buy mechanics for character advancement or some other system of small, but frequent power advancement.
Mechanics Scale With Power
It annoys me in games where a low power character stands zero chance of taking down a high power character. In a way it removes any danger (and thus any tension or anticipation) out of conflicts where a high power character is pitted against a low powered one. While I am fine with high powered characters having a significantly greater chance of success than low powered ones, but there should always be a chance for low powered ones to be victorious.
Reason for Advancement
Role-playing games generally tend to give out some form of points (or some similar mechanism) for improving the statistics of your character. I think this plays an important role in role-playing games. What these improvement points are awarded based on has a way of enforcing that aspect of game play. If these points are given out for killing monsters, then that reinforces the prominence of monster killing in the game. If they're awarded for not being obnoxious in session, then it reinforces that. There is also a positive psychological effect to seeing your character grow and setting goals of improvement for yourself.
Minimize Fixed Metagame Breakpoints
Having fixed status breakpoints in RPGs in general strikes me as artificial and easily abused: You're either up and fighting or unconsciousness at a set point; you're either level 3 or level 4; you're either all-out attacking or just attacking. Because of this I tend to like systems in role-playing games that have a higher number gradients such that there's more of a sliding scale. For example, I like how in Shadowrun you have a combat pool to handle how much effort you put into attack vs. defense etc. I like how in GURPS or the Storyteller system you roll to see if you die or go unconscious rather then having a fixed cut-off of dead or not dead.
Wounds Affect Performance
When people are hurt, they don't perform as well as if they weren't bleeding all over. There's a great deal of dramatic possibility in situations whereone's injuries negatively affect one's actions. I like this as I find such situations interesting.
Dice Represent Action
In my mind, dice rolls in the game represent effort one's character is exerting in the game. Because of this I tend to prefer mechanics where contested actions between two characters involve a die roll on the part of each character involved, rather than one party simply rolling against a target number, as I find one roll to simulate the efforts of two individuals at odds with each other to be counter intuitive.
Resource Management
Imagine that you have two abilities: a powerful one and a not-so-powerful one (such as say, a low damage fireball and a high damage one). Now say, you get into a situation where you want to use your ability. Provided there's no larger downside, chances are you'll just use your most powerful one over and over again. To prevent this monotony (and to add a fun strategy element to game play) many RPGs have some sort of resource management--whether fatigue or power points or spell slots. I enjoy resource management very much in role-playing games, as it forces players to have tactical decisions and in some situations can be used where a player can decide to use their more resource costly options in situations that are of more interest to them.
