We’ve been playing Triangle Agency recently. It’s an investigation game where you play a group of field agents working for The Agency. Your mission is to capture or neutralize anomalies that threaten to destroy reality. It’s SCP meets X-Files meets Laundry Files.
That rulebook though, it’s a piece of art and designed so well. It’s not a book that you simply read through. It’s a book you explore one page at a time. See, the book hides things from you. it keeps secrets–secrets that reveal themselves by playing the game. By engaging with it, exploring what it wants you to explore (and often by breaking the rules and exploring beyond it).
In the game, you’re an agent for the Triangle Agency. You have a company role (competency), a background (reality) and you’re bonded with an anomaly which gives you powers. You’re not supposed to use your powers. Goes against company policy. After all, your job is to capture anomalies, not play around with them. The benefit of being a resonant (it’s what the agency calls bonded agents) is that you’re quite good at handling anomalies without being affected by them (much). You’re not mundane anymore, and therefor hold a special place alongside reality. So, you become a field agent or you end up in the vault yourself. That’s where The Agency keeps captured anomalies, by the way. To study them. Figure out a way to make profit from them. The Agency has a profit line, after all.
It’s good to stay within company policy. For the sake of your own reality.
If you break policy and gain demerits, well, you lose access to the frozen yoghurt room at first. But then the game starts talking back to you. The anomaly, your anomaly, starts to guide you.
Back up. The first few pages of the game are the standard stuff: how to play, the dice, the game structure, and your first mission. You must stop reading the book once your character is created. Only after your first mission are you allowed to read more of the book.
You do that. You capture or neutralize or even let escape your first anomaly. You rely on your competency to deal with challenges, your reality to keep sane, and your anomaly … no, don’t use your powers. It’s against policy.
After your first mission, you get to enjoy some work/life balance. The book explains to you how to advance your competency and reality to get better at the things it offers. You can’t improve your anomaly though. I mean, there is a work/balance track to put points in, sure, but don’t do that.
Do it.
Only after you put the first point into your anomaly will unlock its playwall document. Break the company rules and your anomaly says “Hi.”
Playwall documents are earned. They’re all in the book. But you shouldn’t read them until you unlock them. Work/Life balance will unlock them as you invest time into your competency and reality. Don’t waste time on your anomaly. Just don’t. And whatever you learn, don’t share it with the other players/agents.
As you improve your character, you unlock more and more of the game. You get to read more of the book. Get to explore more of this awesome game. You play the rule book as much as your character. It’s as diegetic as a game can be.
There’s so much going on in this book. Every time I play the game, every time I read more of its content as I unlock its secrets, I find more little details. Little touches of design that are hidden everywhere between the art and the corporate speak, between the redacted words of your anomaly writing over approved text.
Let’s talk about putting these action points into actions.
Power Roll
Whenever you roll dice in combat, you make a Power Roll. This is on account of the amount of dice you roll (and the amount of Stamina it costs) being based on the Power of the thing you’re doing. Whenever you make a Power Roll, you count every 4 as a Hit, every 6 also builds Momentum, and every 1 is a Risk you must mark. You can also charge up any Power Roll by spending more Stamina and get that many more dice. These things are true for every Power Roll, regardless of why you make it.
Abilities
Everything that is an action in this game is called an Ability. That includes weapons–equipping a weapon grands you the weapon’s ability much the same as unlocking a perk that comes with an ability. Abilities have a Power rating, which is both the Stamina cost and, if the ability has a Power Roll, the base dice pool for using that Ability. All abilities that have a Power Roll also have Critical Effects on which you get to spend your Hits. When using an Ability, its base effect (weapon deals damage) always happens. The dice just make it more powerful.
Action Economy
The majority of rules that follow focus on the actions a player character can take. Some of the terms will reappear for enemy actions later on, but they run very differently than player characters. After all, I want GMs to have a more streamlined, easier experience, so they can focus on the story of the fight, instead of needing to become a tactical genius wargamer that needs to outsmart 3-5 other players out to defeat them.
Player characters take turns in any order they like during a round of combat. Rounds, turns–these terms shouldn’t be completely new if you’ve ever played a tactical TTRPG. Even 5e uses them. Just in case, though: A turn is when a character has the spotlight, when they are taking all of their actions and movement. A round is when every character, ally or enemy, has taken a turn. At the start of your turn, you gain free Stamina equal to your Stamina Refresh. This number is modified by things like heavy armor. During a turn, a player character has two types of actions they can use: a Setup Action and an Engage Action.
Setup Action
Setup Actions always happen at the start of a turn. These actions are fast, cost nothing, and are meant to get you going. Things like Repositioning (moving a set amount of spaces on the grid for free), Catching your Breath (gaining more Stamina), or Recovering (removing a single condition) are all Setup Actions.
Here’s the thing: once you’ve taken an Engage Action on your turn, you can’t take your Setup Action anymore. It has to be taken first or is lost.
Engage Action
The bulk of your turn is spend on taking Engage Actions. These actions always cost Stamina, even if they don’t have a roll associated with them.
Most Engage Actions, though, have a roll. The cost for that roll is called Power. Spend an ability’s Power cost as Stamina and get that many dice to roll. Any Hit scored on that Power Roll is then added to your basic effect, i.e. the damage a weapon attack would do.
There is no limit on how many Engage Actions you can take, so long as you’re willing to pay the cost. And remember, you can spend more Stamina on a single action to get that many more dice to roll, increasing your chance to score more Hits. And everything that has a Power Roll has Crits you can buy with Hits. So, the more dice you get to roll, the more potentially cool effects you get to buy. You can also use an Engage Action even if you don’t have enough Stamina left. Simply spend (and if needed, roll) as much as Stamina as you have left. You will become winded if you do this, though (see below).
Here are some examples of things you can do as an Engage Action:
Use an Ability, such as a weapon to attack. The Stamina cost equals the Power of the ability.
Heal, like drinking a healing potion. I think healing potions will be a limited resources, similar to the Estus Flask in Dark Souls. Drinking a charge of it costs 4 Stamina.
Use a Consumable, such as throwing a fire bomb. Consumables cost 2-4 Stamina I think.
Stabilize. Remove a number of conditions spending 4 Stamina. You may also make this a Power Roll, removing additional conditions with each Hit.
Interact with the environment, which costs a certain number of Stamina based on the difficulty of the task.
Move, which costs 1 Stamina for every space moved.
Switch Weapons, by paying some Stamina based on the weight of the weapon.
Complex Actions
Sometimes, an action can also be Complex. A Complex Action costs twice its Power in Stamina without providing any extra dice. So a Complex Action that with a Power of 4 costs 8 Stamina but only offers 4 base dice. This does not affect adding more dice by charging the action.
A good example is using a super heavy weapon. The first attack with that weapon is resolved as normal, but if you want to use it again on the same turn, it now becomes a Complex Action to do so.
Winded
I won’t get into conditions in this post otherwise, but Winded is kind of important to understand here. If you are winded, which means that you have the Winded condition, you can’t use triggers at all (see below). You also can’t reposition as a Setup Action. You can take the Recover Setup Action or Stabilize Engage Action to clear Winded. Uniquely, you can also clear Winded at the start of your turn instead of gaining your free Stamina Refresh.
Triggers
Triggers are special actions that occur always in response to something else. There are two types of Triggers: Reactions and Interrupts.
A Reaction is usually granted by some other effect or ally. They are free and you can take as many Reactions as you like. Everyone has two defensive Reactions:
Dodge. Spend Stamina to reduce incoming ranged damage by one point for every point of Stamina spend. If the damage is reduced to 0 this way, you can also move your base speed. If you are reduced to 0 Stamina while dodging, you become winded. Some gear, such as light armor, might allow you to Dodge melee attacks as well.
Block. Spend the Power of a weapon you’re holding as Stamina to reduce incoming melee damage by that amount. If the damage is reduced to 0 this way, gain half the spent Stamina back. If the weapon you are using is not meant for blocking, you become winded. Some gear, such as shields, can be used to block ranged attacks as well.
Interrupts, on the other hand, cut into someone else’s action to affect them in some way. They also cost Momentum to be used. You can only take one Interrupt Trigger per turn.
Here’s the general idea about these two trigger types. Reactions are granted, meaning they are part of some larger tactical interplay and teamwork. In other words, they aren’t disruptive, and more like part of the plan. That means, they doesn’t need to be a limited on how many a single character can take during a turn. Interrupts, on the other hand, are disruptive. And mostly, they disrupt the enemy taking action. In order to keep the game flowing and bring about some semblance of “balance,” Interrupts are limited to once per turn per character, and they cost Momentum, a somewhat rare resource. This makes using them a tactical choice, as Momentum has other uses as well, such as buying Hits or canceling Risks, after all.
Monster Actions
Monsters, which is the catch-all term for everything you’re fighting, also have Engage and Setup actions. However, they work differently in nearly all aspects.
First of all, regardless of the details, each Setup and Engage action is split into four types. Setup Actions are either a Reposition or a Stunt. Engage Actions are either an Attack or an Exploit. The reason for that is that players will have Interrupts that are triggered by one or more of these four monster action types. So, regardless of what any of these actions actually do, if a player has an Interrupt that can be triggered against their type, they can use their Interrupt Trigger for that turn, pay the Momentum, and it just happens. And often, these Interrupts can outright deny that monster from finishing their indented action.
Monster Action Economy
I will be talking about detailed initiative in a later post. For now, let’s just touch on how a monster’s turn interacts with a player’s turn.
At the start of a new turn during a round, the GM will activate a monster. Then the GM will determine the monster’s Setup and Engage action for that turn. The Setup actions happens right away–either a Reposition to help the monster get into a better place for their attacks, or a Stunt that gives them or their allies some sort of buff or advantage. If they have them, any player character can use their Interrupts to interfere with this Setup Action at this point. Next, the GM will tell the players the determined Engage Action, telegraphing what the monster is attempting to do. This also comes with a predetermined target for that action, which will not change for the remainder of the turn unless the players manage to do so. Crucially, that Engage Action does not yet trigger. The players decide who among should act at this point. Whoever they chose, that character now takes their full turn, Setup Action, Engage Actions, all of it. Only after that player ends their turn does the telegraphed monster Engage Action trigger. If the players managed to, the monster might not be able to reach their predetermined target anymore, swiping its claws across empty air. Otherwise, the players can now use their Interrupts (if they haven’t used theirs this turn already) to react to the monsters Engage Action, which is either an Attack that does damage or an Exploit that does some sort of negative controlling effect such as forced movement or causing a condition on the target(s).
Once all of that is resolved, that turn ends and a new turn starts with the GM picking the next monster to activate.
Let’s sum this up again. First of all, there is always a monster that acts with a player character together. The monster is activated first at the start of a turn, does a setup, and telegraphs their intent toward their target. Players choose who should act given that information to take their turn. After that player’s turn, the telegraphed action happens. At any point, everyone can use their one Interrupt action this turn to affect the acting monster based on action types and triggers and momentum cost. This way, the spotlight always stays with the players, even when a monster acts, and the players need to make the choice whether to let the monster action happen (which can be really bad), or try to address it before it triggers.
And the players will have lots of ways to deal with the monster actions. Besides Interrupts, many Crits can make monsters less effective, force move them across the arena, make them switch targets, and so on. If executed well, this sort of wedge initiative system, where a player’s turn is literally wedged between the two actions of a monster’s turn, could feel tense, fast, and dramatic. Things feel like they’re always in motion. Everyone pays close attention to types of actions taken to trigger their interrupts. Everyone tries to figure out the puzzle of positioning, potential damage, the monster’s telegraphing, trying to make the best of their limited resources.
Things become more interesting once we introduce minions, which are easy to kill but show up in hordes and enhance the monster that activates. And boss monsters, well, they get to act during every single player character’s turn, taking setups and actions every time. This makes them truly menacing and dangerous. Bosses also have some unique actions and elements to make them feel truly epic. More on that later, though.
There you have it. Actions and action economy are the core of any good tactical game. I think what I got here is a good start of a system that, I feel, tries some new ideas. I glossed over a lot of the finer details of how actions, especially monster actions, actually work in practice, but this should serve as good primer for what I have in mind.
I started playing games when I was 15 years old. See, I didn’t really grow up around this kind of stuff. I had video games, though, and I loved them. More than that, I loved making things with video games instead of just playing them. I got hooked creating things with games early on, like creating your own midi-style music back in Mario Paint for SNES.
I remember making my own maps and campaigns for StarCraft Broodwar thanks to their map editor software, which was included with the game. I wrote stories and found ways to make the game engine and editor tell them. Making things for the game, not just playing them, was probably the most fun I had engaging with it.
Then I came across TTRPG. In my very first post here, I talked about how this happened–how a chance encounter with someone I barely knew changed my life. Now, the game was the story. The engine that drove the experience also drove the story. No more awkward script languages I barely understood, no more limitations of tech. Just imagination, a few books of rules and lore, and good people who want to share in it all.
Before that, I never read any books. Just wasn’t into them. TV and video games and Transformers toys were my entertainment. But once I started reading TTRPG books, like Shadowrun and Vampire, I started to get the bug for the stories within them. Shortly after, I bought my first actual novels. Official Shadowrun novels, obviously. I didn’t know it then, but reading books would do the same to me as playing video games: eventually, I started making up my own stories. Wrote my own words down. A deep desire to create.
I don’t know, maybe it’s always been there. I think I always wanted to tell stories. And I think I was good at it, even when I was young. It’s just, no one saw it. No one took that potential and helped shape it into something. Once in school, we had six months to prepare for our final exam in German class, which was us having to write a short story. That story was 50% of our grade for the year. Six months to prepare and plan and write the whole thing if we wanted to. We just had to write it again, by hand, in a three or four our span. I didn’t prepare for it. Maybe I forgot. Maybe my punk-ass didn’t care. But here I was, the day of, and nothing to show for it. So I wrote. Something. Anything. Some sort of story of a dying world, with the last people of earth living under a dome to keep the harsh sun and dead air at bay. A story about the end, as the dome finally cracked. A story about a family during their last moments. Was it any good? Probably not all things considered, but I got full marks for the story itself. My spelling and grammar and handwriting brought down the grade, of course. But then again, I pulled an entire apocalyptic story out of thin air without a single thought ahead of it. And the story itself was good enough to so I would not fail that class that year. I think about that sometimes. About how someone could have said something, noticed something. Made me pursue writing at a younger age. Though, the asshole teenager that I was, I wouldn’t have listened anyways.
I turned 40 this year. In the last 25 years, I finished school, moved across the world, had jobs and friends and people to love, and lost just as much one way or another. I met my spouse, going on 13 years now, have a solid job, a place to live, and a great group of friends online that play games with me. And in all that time, I never stopped creating. I wrote stories, played games, made music, and I designed my own things. Homebrew content, entire systems stolen from one game and made work in another. The first steps of an entirely new game I hope to share with the world soon.
Now I’m here. This journey that started at the turn of century–millennium even–all led me to this post. The reason this blog exists is because I wanted to share my journey, my experiences, how I think and feel and make art. My art. My writing. My love for systems and stories, and the intersection of them, where the best games do the best work. Where I feel the most like myself.
My journey isn’t over. I have been making things since I can think. And, maybe, it’ll inspire someone else, someone reading my words or playing my games, to start a journey of their own some day. Like I wish I had all those years ago.
The reason that we act the way we do. In an RPG, motive is everything. Characters need them, villains need them, the adventure has them in a way, and even the players need to buy in to the game they’re playing.
I think a well-designed game keeps motive and motivations for the players and characters front and center. Games are often about something, have themes and motifs, and expect a certain buy-in from everyone. The best games, in my mind, know what they want to be, focus in on what the game is about, instead of pretending that they’re the best game that can do any- and everything.
Draw Steel, for example, builds character motivation directly into character creation. It’s a game about being heroes that fight monsters, and explicitly so. You choose a career for your character–the person they were before becoming a hero. That gives some character options, such as skills, but it also comes with an inciting incident that made you give up your life for that of a hero. Something was taken from you, something changed, and you can’t go back. Choosing (or rolling on) these inciting incidents lays out a clear heroic motive for your character, which is grounded in where you came from. Be it fame and fortune, revenge, or a sense of duty, you have a strong sense of who your character is, and why they do what they do. Why they buy into the setting’s explicit focus of fighting monsters.
The motives of an antagonist or villain are just as important. Far as they are concerned, they are the protagonist, and often the hero, of their own story. Even if they know that their actions are evil, they still have a clear motivation to justify the malice of their actions to themselves. Motives help inform the group of what the antagonist would do next, how they react to the actions of the player characters.
RPG narratives are inherently fluid and dynamic, always changing as the players make choices the GM (often) didn’t think of at first. Clear motives during unexpected moments, whether those of the characters or the people around them, help tremendously to create interesting and tense stories, and keep the game moving.
More than that, clear motives are just as important for the people behind the characters. Understanding and agreeing on the motives for why players want to play, why GMs want to run–why we’re even here and what we want out of a game–can make for a healthier, more holistic experience for everyone involved.
I’m a little late to the #RPGaDAY2025 party, but why not give it a go here. I’ll start with rapid fire answer for the first 5 days. Later today, I’ll make an effort to write up a more thought out post for today, day 6: Motive.
Patron
Players having a an NPC around which to anchor their exploits can be incredible useful. Shadowrun has fixers and Johnsons, many fantasy games can have mentors, sages, even dragons, that put the characters on quests. Even superhero games can have heroes of the old guard that function as guidance and insight. And then, of course, patrons can become points of tension and disagreement, turning into interesting complications and twists in their own right.
Prompt
How very meta. I could go on for hours on how much I love the Mythic Gamemaster Emulator by https://www.wordmillgames.com. I’ve also written a post about Ironsworn: Starforged, which is a solo game entirely built on using prompts to tell a story. I use random prompt generation to create many aspects of my games, to prepare for a sessions, and often during a game to keep things fresh and interesting. It’s the best way for me to run games. Gets me out of my comfort zone or safe headspace. Notably, I’m not talking about random encounters that tell me what’s happening and letting me figure out how to make it work. I’m talking about more abstract action/theme sort of prompts that make you think differently about the current fiction and its context.
Tavern
The first ever session for many people getting into the hobby through d20 fantasy games start in a tavern. It’s a trope, but it works. And even seasoned players can have fun with this when you start putting twists on it. A frozen tavern full of iced-over zombies, but it was the only refuge for the characters during a blizzard; an invasion of the arch villain of the campaign sees the tavern they’re staying at destroyed, as the city is being plunged into chaos; a hive of scum and villainy, where one of the characters is introduced by shooting first.
Message
I once used messages to taunt a character. It was a real “I know what you did last summer” sort of situation. The character had secrets, and someone out there was trying to taunt him to come clean, to give in. Leaving messages in writing and in blood. Messages left behind for the party to find can be a great storytelling and worldbuilding tool. Gets them thinking, without direct means to probe further, ask questions. All they have are the words/clues/visions given to them in the moment.
Ancient
Ever read Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time? It’s great, read it. One of the big parts of the setting of that story is that the humans are traveling through space on a massive arc ship left behind by a much more advanced human society that fell to their own hubris. The characters barely know how to operate the ship, barely have any records on that once great human empire, their language, their technologies, their understanding of the universe. Something so ancient, yet so much more advanced that we can barely touch the surface of it. And all that’s left are ruined behemoths and knowledge lost to dust and time. Not alien, but clearly human. It’s a theme I love to incorporate in all of my games in some way. Something ancient, something nearly completely unknowable. Yet so close to who we are today.
Behind The Wall 