Amazing mechanical solutions

[silva]

Unshamefully robbing the idea from this thread.. what are the most interesting, elegant, functional, or simply cool mechanics you saw during your lifetime as a gamer ?

Some nice ones I remember now:

The Mountain Witch: Trust. Each character allocates a number of Trust points to each other, in secret. There is no attributes or skills beyond that - only trust counts. The more you trust someone, the more devastating you two are in combat while helping each other, but there is a catch: the more you trust, the more prone to betrayal you are. So how far will you trust ? Simple, effective, elegant. Its Reservoir Dogs meets Seven Samurai.

Dogs in the Vineyard: Escalation. When you have a conflict you roll dice to see who wins. If you lose, you can accept the consequences, or escalate the conflict. Escalating means you have another chance to win, but the consequences for losing become much more severe - arguments become fist fights, and fist fights become gunfights. Lose a argument and you are humiliated; lose a gunfight and you are crippled.. or dead. Its Apocalypse World grandfather and it shows it. Ugly choices everywhere.


How about you guys ?

[AndreiChekov]

My favourite game mechanic is the fist fight.
If two players disagree, they punch each other until on of them gives up. The winner gets a mustache.

[Dean]

If two people trust each other very much why are they likely to betray each other? Why would a game mechanic decide that Han and Chewbacca are more likely to betray each other than two people who just met.

[Koumei]

Just move along, it's another silva thread where he tells us how awesome bad games are.

[TheFlatline]

If two people trust each other very much why are they likely to betray each other? Why would a game mechanic decide that Han and Chewbacca are more likely to betray each other than two people who just met.

It works if you're playing a game with hidden identities/secrets/whatever. Court intrigue. Battlestar Galactica. Something like that.

I can't see it lasting more than as a 1-shot. Though a Game of Thrones Machiavellian cluster-fuck style social game might be fucking awesome to play in. Especially at a convention or something where you're playing with complete strangers.

[TheFlatline]

If I had to lay down a mechanic that won the "OMFG that's too cool" factor for me, it'd have to actually be the traitor mechanic from Battlestar Galactica.

There are other games out there that did it earlier (Dark Shadows over Camelot), there are games that even do hidden traitors quicker, or potentially even better (Resistance in particular takes 15 minutes instead of 2-3 hours), but only BSG has that one moment halfway through the game where... everything changes. New loyalty cards are handed out in the sleeper phase, literally halfway through the game, and you stand a chance of switching sides completely and secretly. Looking around the table after that deal and realizing for the first time that while you couldn't be sure before, now you *are* sure that one, possibly two of the people you worked with to survive this far are now working against you.

[silva]

If two people trust each other very much why are they likely to betray each other? Why would a game mechanic decide that Han and Chewbacca are more likely to betray each other than two people who just met.

I ommited some info, in special the Dark Fates. See, each player is a samurai climbing Mt Fuji to kill O-Yanma, the dreaded mountain witch. Each player must draw a card in the beginning of the game (and keep it hidden). There are 7 cards and each one has a different "Dark Fate" that must come true during the adventure. The majority of these Fates put players against each other in some way (Revenge, Old Debts, Darkness Allegiance, Redemption, etc). So, when the game begins you immediately knows that: 1) there is at least one in the group with dark intentions toward you (but you dont know exactly who), 2) there is someone with dark intentions toward the whole group (the "Dark Allegiance" Fate indicates the character is allied to the witch), and 3) there is someone with no dark intentions at all toward anyone (there is actually a non-dark Fate), etc. And the only thing that makes difference during encounters is the Trust pts that some samurai deposited in you, so that if youre beside a trusted friend your chances of surviving / winning encounters goes up. At the same time trust pts can be used to betray you, if someone you trust wishes. Also, the game is divided by Acts. First Act is presentation of the characters, Second is the start of the journey, Third is foreshadow of Dark Fates, and Fourth and final is revealing of Dark Fates and showdown with the Witch. (no character can die until the final Act, so its not possible to stab someone in the back right in the beginning ).


*Also, your samurai zodiac establishes the initial Trust (ie: Rabbit dislikes Dragon; Monkey is friends with Tiger, etc). But you can re-alocate trust pts between Acts.

[Kaelik]

If I had to lay down a mechanic that won the "OMFG that's too cool" factor for me, it'd have to actually be the traitor mechanic from Battlestar Galactica.

There are other games out there that did it earlier (Dark Shadows over Camelot), there are games that even do hidden traitors quicker, or potentially even better (Resistance in particular takes 15 minutes instead of 2-3 hours), but only BSG has that one moment halfway through the game where... everything changes. New loyalty cards are handed out in the sleeper phase, literally halfway through the game, and you stand a chance of switching sides completely and secretly. Looking around the table after that deal and realizing for the first time that while you couldn't be sure before, now you *are* sure that one, possibly two of the people you worked with to survive this far are now working against you.

See, I actually fucking hate the traitor mechanic in Battlestar, because unlike Resistance, you are actually equally if not more powerful once your traitorosity has been revealed. So the mechanic does not incentivize in any way the action of sometimes succeeding in order to trick them into failing later. You just start off walking to the nearest important area and sabotaging that location until they kill you off, then you lead the cylons from the fleet anyway.

[RadiantPhoenix]

See, I actually fucking hate the traitor mechanic in Battlestar, because unlike Resistance, you are actually equally if not more powerful once your traitorosity has been revealed. So the mechanic does not incentivize in any way the action of sometimes succeeding in order to trick them into failing later. You just start off walking to the nearest important area and sabotaging that location until they kill you off, then you lead the cylons from the fleet anyway.

Which expansions do/did you play with?

[hogarth]

Sometimes some of the oldest ideas are the best. Case in point: the Champions RPG's idea that all abilities are paid for from the same pool and you get exactly the abilities that you pay for and you don't get the abilities that you don't pay for. Simple, but brilliant.

[silva]

Agree with Champions.

Also, Amber rpg attribute auctions is a clever way to setup tension and competitiveness between players right from the beginning.

[tussock]

For old ideas, the bit where your success chance and the power of your action are separate things and rolled separately is excellent and in all ways better than when you use one number which decides both your success chance and power in one.

Same with defence structures and target numbers. Two axis of resolution are much better than one. But three is only slightly better and mostly just slower, and more than three is silly.


Also, simple linearly accumulative damage and critical existence failure. Binary functionality. All good stuff and better than the alternatives for many good reasons.

[OgreBattle]

The refinement of existing ideas is what I most enjoy reading, things like the d20 are familiar to everyone but not everyone really understands how far you can push the RNG before it falls apart into itty bitty pieces.

The implementation of advantage/disadvantage in D&DN sounded like a good idea to me, but the implementation of the rerolls seemed haphazard. The Den had a good discussion about how Advantage/Disadvantage should work in D&D's d20 system, since when you have a reroll you can't have them stack so what causes a reroll should be a small but frequent list:

So you can get +9 on a d20 before more bonuses break the RNG. How can stacking static modifiers be kept under control?

Fiddly modifiers
Training/Mood related
*attributes
*Level
*Proficiency/Skill/Feat
*Morale (Encouragement/Fear, going berserk?)

Material properties
*Item
*Force (force fields, magicked weapons)
*Weakness/Resistance (Silver vs werewolves, magic vs golems)

Positional
*Swarming (formation fighting, mob of zombies)
*Cover (light, medium, total)
*Distance (short, med, long, extreme)
*Footing (slippery, on horseback, on a storm wracked ship)
*Height/Size (giant vs dwarf, cavalry vs infantry without reach weapons, high/low ground)

-------

Advantage
Bonus earned through stunts or temporary effects.
+Positional advantage: Target is flanked/prone/restrained/flat footed
+Cognitive advantage: Target is unable to see you, target is surprised

Disadvantage
Penalties from temporary effects
-Cognitive: sensory overload, darkness, illusions, super distractions
-Physical: entangling vines, webs, getting grappled, beetles crawling all over you

Double Down
-Stunned/Nauseated (electrocuting a water elemental, getting clobbered hard on the head)

[rasmuswagner]

For old ideas, the bit where your success chance and the power of your action are separate things and rolled separately is excellent and in all ways better than when you use one number which decides both your success chance and power in one.

Same with defence structures and target numbers. Two axis of resolution are much better than one. But three is only slightly better and mostly just slower, and more than three is silly.

Two axis of resolution are better than one....like early SR, where you count number of successes against a variable TN? Because that way of doing things is incredibly shitty.

Or do you mean "fuck you, nWoD. I want to be able to distinguish between accurate attacks and powerful attacks".

[silva]

Tussock, care to give an example of that kind of "one axis" rule ? I dont remember seeing any. Even 1e D&D tracked chance of success and damage separately, no ?

[Dogbert]

3E M&M's Edit-a-Scene use of Hero Points. Some actual shared narrative.

Also the "Ultimate Effort" advantage because, If I'm going to spend a (relatively) finite resource on a die roll, it better makes an actual difference!

Yeah, I know, not balanced or anything, but being a superhero is all about getting away with murder, and I like it that way.

[silva]

ogrebattle citation of advantages reminded me of something: I hate highly granular point buy like seen in Gurps, cause it makes char creation a totally cold, inorganic mathematical process.

[Red_Rob]

Case in point: the Champions RPG's idea that all abilities are paid for from the same pool and you get exactly the abilities that you pay for and you don't get the abilities that you don't pay for. Simple, but brilliant.

Agree with Champions.

I hate highly granular point buy like seen in Gurps, cause it makes char creation a totally cold, inorganic mathematical process.

Whatwhatwhat?

You agree that building your character using a pool of points that covers everything is "brilliant" but you hate highly granular point buy systems?

Are you actually any different to a bot that just spouts random statements at this point?

[silva]

When the process is simple, I like it. When it takes 2 hours I hate it.

[OgreBattle]

That post of mine Silva mentioned was about cutting down too many modifiers into a smaller list of meaningful modifiers.

So if Silva was a little curly haired blonde girl breaking into a bear's house then GURPS is the porridge that was too hot, but that doesn't mean Silva doesn't want porridge at all. If he finds the porridge (point buy system) of a pleasing temperature (nice balance of meaningful choices) he will likely eat it.

[Atmo]

OVA's "poker dice" and "drama dice": it is a interesting, and tricky, way of counting your success (or failure) in an action/attack. The second one is interesting because the player can try to increase his odds by spending his reserves of Endurance.

Altars & Archetypes "ability dice vs difficulty dice": tested this option yesterday, and was very much fun when a player looks at the dice and cries when his own luck betrayed him.

[silva]

That post of mine Silva mentioned was about cutting down too many modifiers into a smaller list of meaningful modifiers.

So if Silva was a little curly haired blonde girl breaking into a bear's house then GURPS is the porridge that was too hot, but that doesn't mean Silva doesn't want porridge at all. If he finds the porridge (point buy system) of a pleasing temperature (nice balance of meaningful choices) he will likely eat it.

Ogre nails it in the head. I like the concept, but not all implementations of it.

[Red_Rob]

That post of mine Silva mentioned was about cutting down too many modifiers into a smaller list of meaningful modifiers.

So if Silva was a little curly haired blonde girl breaking into a bear's house then GURPS is the porridge that was too hot, but that doesn't mean Silva doesn't want porridge at all. If he finds the porridge (point buy system) of a pleasing temperature (nice balance of meaningful choices) he will likely eat it.

And in that analogy, Champions is lava straight from the pits of hell.

I can only assume that silva has never made a Champions character, or played Champions, or even looked at a Champions character sheet. Seriously, let's look at one now:

How long do you think it takes to calculate and itemise all that shit?

Saying you agree Champions is "brilliant" and then straight away saying you hate "cold, inorganic, mathematical" point buy systems is like claiming you love D&D but hate fantasy RPG's. It's a total 180.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Yeah, Champions chargen basically requires the use of linear algebra. GURPS certainly can get complicated, but most chargen is simple arithmetic.

[PoliteNewb]

The reason Champions is awesome and GURPS is kind of shit is because Champions makes purchases (of powers, etc) flexible and versatile, and gives you guidelines for how much points are (or should be) worth. It also stresses that the point cost can (and should) vary depending on circumstances (they specifically use this to avoid "disadvantages that aren't disadvantageous").

Whereas GURPS charges you fixed point amounts for abilities that may or may not be worth a goddamn.

Also, Amber rpg attribute auctions is a clever way to setup tension and competitiveness between players right from the beginning.

While it is clever, it also makes it effectively impossible to (fairly) bring in additional players after the start of the campaign. That can be a sizeable bug to some people.