Category: Project Star Quest

Space Adventure in Humanity’s Dark Future. Tactical combat, consequential narrative.

Three six-sided dice stacked on top of each other in a pyramid shape.

Design Challenge: Conditions & Risks

StefanLeave a comment

When I talked about the core dice mechanic of what would eventually become Project Star Quest, I mentioned the concept of Risks. In short, every time you roll a 1 with your d6 dice pool, you must mark one of several Risks. Each mark represents a literal narrative risk you are taking as part of your action, but has no direct mechanical impact just yet. Only when a Risk takes six marks, do you suffer its Condition–a negative effect you will need to deal with. Shredded armor, running out of ammo, being pinned down–just some examples of what a Risk could be. Finally, you can’t clear marks; you can only remove a Condition once you have it, which also removes all marks.

So, what’s a Condition?

If you played a tactical-style TTRPG before (Pathfinder, Draw Steel, Lancer, etc), you know what a condition is. Most of them are bad, hindering your character in some way or another. They usually last a set amount of time measured in rounds, start/end of turn, or allowing for some sort of roll to clear them. Pretty standard stuff.

So that’s what I did. I created a bunch of conditions you get to dish out and suffer. From being unable to move, to taking more/dealing less damage, to all the other classics.

And then I ran into a big issue: the list got big, which means there are a ton of different things each player might now have to track. And then again, I noticed an even bigger issues: conditions are in direct conflict with the design of Risks. So much so that the list of potential conditions more than doubled!

Who the fuck wants to track all these conditions?

Honestly, I think conditions are always one of the weaker designs of any tactical game. There are always way too many of them, and they all do vastly different things–some conditions in Draw Steel have several paragraphs worth of rules. Draw Steel doesn’t have too many conditions to start, but still, it’s a lot to track.

Once I realized that my conditions came into conflict with Risks, I knew I had to make some changes. Not only was the number of conditions simply too high, there was an overlap with the standalone conditions and the Risk conditions. For example, I had a condition called “Stop” which made it so you can’t reposition at the start of your turn. But then I also had a Risk category called “Mobility” and once you fill out all six marks, you gain the “Pinned Down” condition, which did the same, besides making it so that you can’t benefit from cover. Two conditions doing the same thing. That’s not great.

So I went back to the things I keep in mind when tinkering with a game: Less is more. And bring it back to the core mechanics.

This is where I landed.

Pressure

I removed nearly all standalone conditions and moved them into the Risks. Risks are sorted into four categories, which are also your main combat stats (Offense, Defense, Control, Resist). I went over stats previously, but here is a short refresher: Offense is your base damage on attacks; Defense is your damage threshold before getting hurt; Control is your base effect magnitude for controlling effects; Resist is your reduction of controlling effects directed at you. Every character has these, player or monster a like.

Whenever an enemy would force a condition on you, it will now force you to mark one or more Risks on one of the four categories. This is called Pressure. Much like marking a Risk from rolling a 1, you the player get to narrate how the enemy is putting pressure on you, letting you choose which Risk within that category you want to mark.

Let’s take a look at all Risks within their categories:

(This is a big sneak peak at actual design content, with lots of hitherto unheard terms. It’s also not final.)

  • Offense
    • Weakened. Set Base Offense to 0. (You can still increase your damage with Hits)
    • All Out. Can only attack at melee. (As a tactical game, only being able to do melee is a big deal)
    • Panic. All Engage actions have disadvantage. (Disadvantage halves your total value like damage)
  • Defense
    • Vulnerable. Set Base Defense to 0. (You’ll take real harm a lot easier)
    • Shredded. Can’t use Armor trigger. (Armor triggers let you use your armor as a Power Roll)
    • Dazed. Can’t Block or Evade. (No means to reduce damage)
  • Control
    • Confused. Set Base Control to 0. (Control affects area of effects and buff magnitude as well as forced movement or your chance to place conditions on enemies)
    • Stunned. Can only use one Interrupt trigger each round instead of turn. (Big tactical drawback)
    • Bleeding. All Engage actions cause +1 Affliction (Afflictions are round-based damage over time effects)
  • Resist
    • Overwhelmed. Set Resist to 0. (Enemies can place more pressure or other effects on you)
    • Unstable. Can’t Reposition. (Can’t move for free)
    • Exposed. When taking Stress, mark an additional Stress. (Stress are lethal forms of damage)

If an enemy places 3 Pressure on Defense, you still get to decide where to place these 3 marks as you would with rolling 3 Risks, just limited to the items within the Defense category.

Sorting Risks under your primary stats/attributes and linking almost all conditions to these risks streamlines a lot of the design. It also brings conditions back to the core mechanic of Risks, which just makes it all click better. There’s still 12 of them here, which isn’t exactly a small list. But this isn’t the final design, and I can see a world where they get cut down even more. I think they probably need to be reduced, to be honest.

For now, I envision a character sheet that has the four stats prominent at the top, and the three Risks for each underneath it with its marks and a short text explaining the condition. I think that can be quite elegant, and it keeps getting these conditions mostly player facing, as they have to mark Risks of their choice.

Monsters

Monsters don’t mark Risks, so for them, the players still get to place standalone conditions. However, there’s a small list for them which I plan to streamline as well. For example, do we need separate conditions for Slow, Prone, Restraint, etc? Or can a single condition that simulates “not being able to move and easier to hit” do the trick? I haven’t finalized this list, yet, but I think it’ll be shorter.

Removing Conditions

Conditions last indefinitely–there is no saving throw or end-of-turn timer. Once you have them, you must make an active choice to get rid of them. At the start of your turn, you can use your one Setup action to remove one condition, instead of , for example, moving or gaining more Stamina. You can also spend Stamina as an Engage Action to remove several conditions at once.

Enemies can’t clear conditions freely, either. The GM has means to do so, but that’s a topic of another post that digs into enemy design and Animus.

The intention here is simple: player agency. Players decide (to a degree) which condition they will get, and they decide when to remove them. That level of control over what bad stuff happens to you and how to remove it might just help keeping track of everything. Might feel more personal or something.

Conditions, again

Some standalone conditions ended up remaining in this design: Winded, Vulnerable X, Affliction X, Stagger X.

  • I talked about Winded before. It’s a condition you get when running out of Stamina from certain actions (such as Evade).
  • Stagger is only for enemies. They get a stack of Stagger whenever they avoid all damage or controlling effects. Stagger makes it easier to hit them, so the more you pelt an enemy, even if they manage to survive, the easier it becomes to defeat them. There are other ways to build up Stagger, as well.
  • Vulnerable X increases the damage you take at the end of the turn by X, if you took any damage at all. I’m not sure if this condition is really needed. Time will tell.
  • Affliction X is damage you take at the start of a round. All damage over time effects (fire, bleeding, acid, etc) are tallied up and added to this single Affliction.

Buffs

So far, conditions have all been negative. But sometimes, a condition can be positive, too. I call them Buffs, and there are three of them:

  • Elude, which makes it so enemies are less likely to target you.
  • Taunt, which makes it so enemies are more likely to target you.
  • Guard, which is removed instead of marking Stress.

All other buffs I thought of before are instead streamlined into Boosts. Boosts stack and last until the end of combat. As a reaction, you can spend Boosts on actions as if they are Stamina. Much like Pressure, Boosts keep things simple, and being able to boost your Stamina with them helps you with every action, as well as dodge and evade. But using it is a reaction, so you can’t use it while your are Winded. Game design.

I’m thinking of allowing more uses for Boosts, such as buying Focus with it. Though, this might become a perk you can unlock as part of your advancement, instead of a core mechanic.

Conclusion

I think I know why I feel that conditions are the weakest point of most tactical games’ design. Striking the balance of variety and complexity versus ease of use and being able to track them all is tricky. I attempt to do so by making them mostly part of the core dice mechanic I invented for this game, which does feel like a good approach.

Risks are player facing, which might help them with keeping track of them all. It also makes running enemies easier, again, as the GM doesn’t need to worry about telling players which condition they get and what it does. They simply say, “You take 2 Pressure to your Defense” and let the players place their marks as they see fit. I think that’s elegant. And much like marking a Risk from rolling a 1, the player is free to give a quick narration of how that Pressure effects them based on the Risks they mark and Conditions they might get. It just brings it all back to the core dice mechanic of Risks, Hits, and Momentum.

I’m happy with that.

I haven’t nailed conditions for monsters just yet, but maybe there is something similar I can do. Tracking a handful of monsters all with their own conditions is a pain in the ass, so I will want to ensure that the process is just as streamlined. If not more. Being able to place Stagger on them is a good start, already. Part of the enemy design is that, if a monster reaches a certain amount of Stagger, they “break” which causes something negative to happen to them. It’s similar to Risks in that regard. So, one thought I had is that players only ever increase Stagger instead of placing any conditions besides Vulnerable and Afflictions. That might feel to limited though, not enough tactical juice here.

All in all, though, I feel strongly about this design direction. It’s both simple and in-depth. And it can be expanded further with perks or gear that offer “free” Risk slots to mark instead of your main ones. Lots of options there.

I’ll leave it there, for now.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan

More Project Star Quest

Design Challenge: Conditions & Risks

Conditions are a staple of any tactical TTRPG. I want to streamline them into something that fits my core dice mechanic by making them part of Risks.

Action Points IV: Combat Basics

Combat is essential for this type of game, so let’s look at some of the basics for my WiP. Mockup ability examples included.

Three six-sided dice stacked on top of each other in a pyramid shape.

Action Points IV: Combat Basics

StefanLeave a comment

Last time, I talked about the action economy for this game, giving an overview of what sort of things you can do during combat. Now, let’s look at combat itself.

Combat Statistics

–or just called Stats. You have four primary stats: Offense, Defense, Control, Resist. Each of these stats has two important rating: Base and Total. The base rating is just the number written in that stat. The total rating is that stat after all modifiers are applied, such as adding Hits from a Power Roll.

  • Offense, which is your base damage of all of your damaging abilities. Abilities with the Offense tag add Hits rolled on their Power Roll to your total Offense.
  • Defense, which is the threshold of damage you can take in a turn before needing to mark Stress. Stress is really bad.
  • Control, which determines the magnitude of effects and conditions, such as the size of an area or the distance of a force move ability. Abilities with the Control tag add Hits rolled on their Power Roll to your total Control.
  • Resist reduces incoming Control effects. Resist is subtracted from the attacker’s total Control value, and if it’s 0 or less, the effect is avoided.

That’s it for stats. I think these terms can be adjusted based on the genre or themes of the game they are used in. A low fantasy game that has little magic and uses mostly weapons could call Offense something like Arsenal, or maybe it’s Firepower in a sci-fi game. Defense could be renamed to Reflex in a fast paced JRPG style game. You get the idea, but for now we stick with this generic terms as they do the trick.

Player characters also have some secondary stats, such as Speed and Stamina Refresh. Currently, I’m thinking that a Stamina cap, or maximum Stamina, isn’t really needed. Yeah, you could store up a ton of Stamina for some reason, that would mean you didn’t do anything or defended yourself.

Abilities

Player characters have several abilities from many different sources. Some are inherent based on choices made, such as picking a class (if this game has classes), or other advancement options. Weapons and other gear are also treated as abilities and are resolved the same way.

All abilities have the same core design:

  • Tags, which categorize the ability and let you add to or modify it based on other perks you might have.
  • Power, which is the Stamina cost and dice pool for the ability–the Power Roll.
  • Base Effect, which is the thing that happens when using the ability regardless of the roll. i.e. Damage.
  • Range, which is the basic range at which the weapon can be used.
  • Crits, which are special effects you can purchase by spending Hits from the Power Roll.

Since weapons are treated as abilities, let’s take a look at how that would work. This is just a mockup, proof of concept sort of thing.

A Sword (Power 6)

Weapon, Melee, Offense
Effect: Deal damage to one target.
Range: Melee (adjacent targets)
Crits: Spend your Hits to buy each of the following effects once per use:

  • Sweep (2). Deal just your base Offense to another adjacent enemy.
    • Deal some damage to an adjacent target that won’t be modified by Hits. This damage is considered your total Offense against that target for the purpose of things that adjust that total value, such as Disadvantage (more on that later).
  • Swordplay (2). Slide the Target (Control). You may enter any space the target has left.
    • Slide lets you move the target in any one direction you like, up to a number of spaces equal to your total Control. Since the weapon does not have the Control tag, your Hits do not increase your total Control for this Crit.
  • Defensive Stance (4). The weapon gains the Block tag this turn.
    • Usually, blocking with a weapon or item that doesn’t have the Block tag would cause you to become Winded.

It costs 6 Stamina to use this weapon based on its Power, and that gives you 6 dice to roll. You can spend more Stamina to charge the use, of course. Any 4+ you roll is a Hit. You can buy more Hits by spending Focus, which you earn by rolling 6s. Hits are added to your total Offense, as the sword has the Offense tag, and you can then also spend Hits to buy Crits. It’s not an either-or–Hits increase your Offense regardless of how many of them you spend on Crits.

Defensive Stance is a great option if you know that the enemy acting on your turn is attacking you. This way you can reduce any damage they might do to you in melee by the Power of your Sword without becoming Winded.

Thunder Roar (Power 6)

Spell, Control
Effect: Push (Control) Target
Range: Close (within 3 spaces)
Crits: Spend your hits to buy each of the following effects once per use:

  • Outburst (3/5). This use gains the Area tag and becomes a Burst 1 instead. +2 Hits to change the area to Control.
    • Burst 1 means it affects all targets adjacent to you, but you can spend more Hits to increase the area to your total Control stat.
  • Force of Nature (4/5/6). For 4 Hits, deal your base Offense as damage to the target. For 5 Hits, add the Lightning tag. For 6 Hits, also gain the Offense tag.
    • This Crit adds damage to this Control ability. Pay an additional Hit to add the Lightning tag, turning the damage into Lightning damage and make the entire ability stronger against enemies that are weak to this element. One more Hit will also allow you to increase your total Offense with your total amount of Hits rolled.

Here is an example of a spell that is nature themed. At its base, it can push a single target away from you up to a distance equal to your total Control–Hits are added to your base Control as it has the Control tag. You can upgrade it with Crits to become an area effect around you, and even add lightning damage to it.

Like I said, these are just a mockup of the kinds of things an ability or weapon would be able to do. It shows off how attacking would look, how Control is used, and how flexible the tag system could be. I envision these abilities to be written on a card-sized paper, which you can lay out in front of you.

The real challenge will be to design Crits that are interesting but not too complex or overwhelming. This mock sword has three options, but to that you would add Crit effects from other perks that are always usable, so that list could get a too big to maintain a good sense what you can do.

Range Bands

The game is played out on a grid. For Project Star Quest, I’m using a hex-grid, cause it’s sci-fi and more played out using ranged combat. Less weirdness with diagonal measurements that way.

That said, I am experimenting with using range bands, something found mostly in more narrative games that have combat, to determining distances for abilities ranges and enemy movement. Currently, that looks like this:

  • Melee: Can only adjacent spaces.
  • Close: Can target up to 3 spaces away.
  • Moderate: Can target up to 6 spaces away.
  • Far: Can target up to 10 spaces away.
  • Extreme: Can target up to 15 spaces away.

All abilities have a set range, and enemy movement is also set to one of these ranges. However, you can target an enemy one range step higher, though the ability now has Disadvantage (see below). Melee actions are an exception as they can’t be used at a range beyond melee.

Why do this?

Well, I find that in most games, the design uses range bands behind the scenes–in 5e, you’ll find that 20 feet, 60 feet, 120 feet, and similar numbers repeat all the time. Draw Steel likes to have distances of 1, 2, 5, 10, 12 a lot. The only difference with my design is that I make this thing part of the interaction. Instead of giving characters plus 1 or minus 2 on a range for whatever reason, I can shift their band up or down with effects, buffs, and so on. I like that.

(There is also a chance that I will remove the grid altogether at some point, at least to try it out.)

Other Factors

Here some other things can affect your abilities.

  • Disadvantage. When an action has Disadvantage, you must cut your total Offense/Control in half after all modifiers have been applied. Having more than one source of Disadvantage means that your total Offense/Control is 0 for that use, which can’t be increased by any means.
  • Dangerous. Some abilities are considered Dangerous, meaning that every 6 you roll is also a Risk you must mark.
  • Impact. Abilities might have an Impact rating. For every point of Impact, you count a Hit twice. For example, if your ability has an Impact of 2 and you roll 4 Hits, you can count the first two Hits twice, for a total of 6 Hits.
  • Cover. When your target has cover, you consider them to be a range step farther than they actually are. For example, if you attack an enemy in cover that is within 5 spaces–Moderate Range, which goes up to 6–you treat them as if they were at Far range (up to 10 spaces). So, if your ability has a base range of Moderate, you would have to attack one step beyond your range band and have disadvantage.

Stress

The last thing I want to touch on for the basics of combat is Stress. This is serious damage you want to avoid at all costs.

Here’s out it works:

You tally up all the damage you take during the course of a single turn. If, at the end of that turn, you took more damage than you the value of your Defense stat, you will take a point of Stress. A player character can only take a small number of Stress points before they are taken out (not outright dead, I prefer more narrative consequences).

Break Gear

Instead of marking Stress to your character, you can decide to instead put that Stress on your worn gear. That breaks them, making them unusable for the rest of the fight. It’s a tough choice to make, but it’s pretty cinematic when you must break your sword as the dark lord winds up to strike you down, just so you can stay in the fight just one more turn.

Healing & Patching

Characters will have a limited resources to heal Stress from themselves or Patch broken gear. Think of it as the Estus Flask in Dark Souls–a limited amount of healing potions everyone has access to and will remove Stress when used as an Engage Action. Patching up gear restores its use but reduces its Power by 1 until they are properly fixed during some form of downtime. And an item with a Power of 0 is destroyed for good.

Monster Stress

Most monsters die if they take a single point of Stress. The idea here is that the players will face a lot of monsters, instead of just a handful. Think of Aragorn facing down an entire horde of orcs. They die easily, but are numerous.

Boss monsters have more Stress they can mark, making them much tougher and dangerous.

When you damage a monster but fail to inflict Stress, they gain a stack of the Stagger condition. Similar to Winded, Stagger makes monsters easier to damage in subsequent turns, and if they gain enough stacks, they break and suffer some terrible effect. I will dig into conditions and monster design soon enough to explain these things in more detail.

That’s enough for combat basics for now. I have a feeling that a lot of these concept might not make a lot of sense outside of the larger context of the complete rules. But it also showcases some of the basic ideas for how I think the players will interact with the game during combat. The two mock abilities–a sword and thunder roar–are great examples for how critical effects would work. The design possibilities here are really exciting to me.

I think Conditions will be next, which includes a deeper look at how Risks work during combat. Stay tuned for that.

Bye.

Three six-sided dice stacked on top of each other in a pyramid shape.

Action Points III: Action Economy

StefanLeave a comment

Okay, we now know how to roll dice and what those dice get us. We talked about Hits, Momentum, and Risks. Action Points are now called Stamina, on account of them limiting the amount of stuff you can do in a round of combat.

But what exactly can you do?

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.

Let me know what you think.

Stefan.

Three six-sided dice stacked on top of each other in a pyramid shape.

Action Points II: Core Dice Mechanic

StefanLeave a comment

Last time, I talked about action points and dice pools, and their potential relationship. Today, I want to present my vision for a core dice mechanic derived from that idea.

So far, I was talking vaguely about what I’m wanting to do. This post, as you’ll see, will be a lot more direct. Terms, rules, concepts, all presented with my thoughts and notes.

To recap: You have a number of Action Points you can spend on your turn to take one or more actions. When you spend these points, they also become your d6 dice pool to roll for the action.

The following system ideas are for a grid-based tactical combat game only. The narrative side of the game, while still using d6 dice pools and using the same general terms, works differently to be less granular and more story focused.

Stamina

First of all, let’s move away from the term Action Points. It works well enough, but I prefer terms that more closely support the fiction or fantasy of the game. And speaking of fantasy, let’s call our action points Stamina.

If you ever played an action adventure video game, you might be quite familiar with that term. Often represented as a green bar under your health, Stamina is used up as you take actions–attack, run, cast spells, block. From Software games, such as Dark Souls, come to my mind right away. Avowed, the Legend of Zelda games on the Switch, and a countless number of other games all use some version of the stamina bar. So, “Stamina” is a great name for action points in my game, assuming I’m making a fantasy game. Which was the first iteration of this concept.

So, your character has Stamina, which they can spend to take actions, move around, defend, etc. Much like in a video game, there is a limited amount of Stamina, and at certain points (start of your turn?) you get some more of it. But how do you actually use it?

Spending Stamina

When taking an action, you must spend a certain amount of Stamina. The exact values aren’t really important right now and something that will require a lot of testing to get the balance right. What matters is that you pay the cost for the action and grab that many dice. I’m thinking six-sided, or d6.

Then you roll them. You’re looking for 4+ on each die, which is called a Hit. The more Hits, the better. You’re also noting how many 1s and 6s you roll. More on all that later.

Charging

If you have played action adventures video games, then you know that you can often charge up your actions and attacks. This costs time and more Stamina then the base cost of the action. Likewise, in my game, you can add more Stamina to your dice pool to increase your chance to roll more Hits. Just like charging up your attack.

Some character options might also give you free dice to charge your actions–perhaps when using specific weapons or attacking specific enemy types.

Moving & Defending

You can also spend Stamina to move across the battlefield. My idea for a game uses a grid, so each square (or hex) costs a point of Stamina. There are other ways to move, but if you need some extra movement, you use Stamina. Think of it as sprinting in a video game.

Likewise, you can spend Stamina to defend yourself. You can dodge, reducing incoming damage by 1 for every Stamina spend. If the damage is reduced to 0, you can even move for free–dodge rolling out of the way. You can also block if you’re holding something with which blocking is an option.

Winded

You can even take an action if you don’t have enough Stamina left to pay for it. Simply roll the amount you have left. But doing so will leave you Winded, which isn’t a great state to be in. There are other ways to become winded, such as by blocking with a non-melee type weapon or shield. Winded is a condition, which we won’t cover in more detail in this post.

Hits, Risks, Momentum

Alright. Let’s look at how to actually parse the dice when rolling Stamina. You’re looking for three numbers:

  • Rolling 4+ is a Hit. Hits improve your action’s outcome.
  • Rolling a 6 gives a point of Momentum. Momentum is used to fuel powerful abilities, buy more Hits, cancel Risks (see below), and some other effects.
  • Rolling a 1 means you must mark a Risk. Risks are abstract tensions that build pressure as the fight goes on, eventually causing debilitating conditions.

So, you spend your Stamina, roll your dice, and determine how many Risks, Hits, and Momentums you got. Now what?

Hits

Roll a 4, 5, or 6, you get a Hit. The more Hits, the better.

Here’s the thing, when you take an action in my game, the basic effect of that action happens regardless of the dice. Weapons deal damage. Controlling effects push people around or cause conditions. Allies get healed. Missing, failing, not doing anything on your turn because of bad dice luck, well that just sucks. So, whatever you want to do just happens. The fight in both mechanics and narrative always moves forward. No wasted turns.

Hits improve the basic effect. More damage, worse conditions, better healing. Straight forward, simple enough.

Critical Hits

Most games, video or tabletop, have some sort of Critical Hits, or Crits. My game does, as well. Though, Crits aren’t just a matter of rolling a rare number on a die, you know, like a 20 on a d20. Instead, Crits are purchased by spending your Hits.

That’s right, Hits always increase your basic action, and then you spend them on buying additional effects. And the possibilities here are endless. Maybe a greatsword has a Crit called “Sweep” that costs a number of Hits and lets you strike additional targets for your base damage. Maybe elemental effects can cause damage over time afflictions by spending Hits. Class traits (if indeed there are such things as classes) could also offer Crits you could buy regardless of action or weapon used. Some sort of rogue class, for example, could have a Crit effect that lets them fade away after an attack.

This idea is akin to games that have Stunts or similar mechanics. The Alien RPG, for example, also uses d6 dice pools. All you ever need is one 6 to achieve your goal. Additional 6s let you use Stunts based on the skill you used.

Momentum

When you roll a 6, you gain a point of Momentum on top of it counting as a Hit. Momentum is spent on powerful abilities you may have from your character advancements, class, or whatever else the game will have. You can also spend Momentum to buy additional Hits to buy more Crits if you wish. An ability could be something like a powerful magical effect or area attack more powerful than a basic weapon.

Risks

Risks are probably the most unique part of this core mechanic. At least I haven’t come across something like this before.

A Risk represents a narrative setback you suffer whenever you roll a 1. Every 1 you roll must be marked on of your Risks, but you get to choose which ones! Once a Risk is marked six times, you get its corresponding condition. Until that point, however, Risks are just tension, not directly affecting you.

The idea is that you get to narrate what you are willing to risk as you take your action. Are you exposing yourself as you rush in with your sword drawn, firing your dwindling supply of arrows rapidly to stop an enemy advancing, or risk becoming overwhelmed by the enemy as you make your stand?

What makes this feel dramatic and tense is the fact that you can’t clear marks on a Risk until its fully marked and you suffer the condition. You can then, as part of your actions, clear the condition, and with it all its marks.

I could give a bunch of example Risks now, but none of that would make sense outside of the context of the larger game, as these risk conditions affect game mechanics we haven’t talked about, yet. And this post already has enough game terms already. So for now, imagine there is a Risk that, if filled, would reduce your ability to defend yourself. Another Risks would make it so you can’t move. Another one makes it so you weapons aren’t working (as in, maybe you’re disarmed or run out of arrows). And every time you mark one of these Risks with the 1s you roll, you can envision how your character is risking something to be effective in combat.

At some point, I was using the term “Stress” instead of “Risk.” It works, but I prefer a term that represents the player making a choice, instead of just getting a passive negative thing. It’s not some stress you endure, it’s a risk you’re willing to take to do act in a dangerous fight. Keeps the spotlight on the character, feels more epic.

A fun thing about this the player’s choice as to which Risks to mark. Yeah, they could just spread them out and have a few marks on all the Risks. But eventually, maybe just with a single unluckily roll of many 1s, they will suffer the consequences and conditions of these. Or they focus all of their rolled 1s on just one Risk, knowing that it’s much easier to clear a single condition than many, even if it’s built up faster.

Canceling Risks

You can spend Momentum, including Momentum rolled on the current action, to cancel out Risks at the cost of one Momentum per Risk. You can only cancel a 1 you just rolled, but not Risks that are already marked.

And that’s it, really. You spend Stamina, roll that many dice, then spend your Hits, mark your Risks, and earn your Momentum. You can use more Stamina to charge your roll, to move, to defend yourself, and you can use Momentum to further improve your rolls or activate powerful abilities. On the flip side, every action has an inherent Risk, which is represent by an abstract track for several conditions, and every 1 you roll is placed on a track of your choice.

Next time, I’ll go even deeper into the system and show you how this core dice mechanic can be used in practice. That means stats, top level overview of combat, gear, and early drafts of what a character could look like.

At some later point, I will also dig into how I envision the core dice mechanic of Hits, Momentum, and Risks could work in narrative play. I have recently made some great breakthroughs in that area, which I think will be a powerful tool to tell great stories over several sessions, character arcs and all.

Until then,

Me.

Three six-sided dice stacked on top of each other in a pyramid shape.

Action Points And Dice Pools

StefanLeave a comment

Whenever I think about game design, I often end up thinking about my favorite video games and how to capture those mechanics in some interesting way. Not to copy them, but to emulate them. Be inspired by them.

One of my all-time favorite video games is Jagged Alliance 2. You play as commander of a small band of mercenaries, which you hire and manage from a fake computer interface. Each of them has a personality, likes and dislikes, and even relationships with other mercs. You’re on a mission to liberate a country oppressed by a tyrannical leader, working together with the local resistance group, and exploring said country through a square grid map with all sorts of interesting things scattered around.

When it cuts to the action, you zoom into the current grid your group occupies, where the gameplay turns from faux-OS to an isometric view of the location–a town, a rough terrain, a military compound–and you get to move your people around, explore the location, talk to locals, kick in doors, and try to eliminate the enemy soldiers before they eliminate you. Everything but that last part is played out in real-time. But the moment you spot an enemy (or they spot you), the game goes into turn-based combat mode.

Turns are played out one side at a time. When it’s your time, you get to act with all of your mercs at once, resolving their actions in any order you like. The enemies do the same, and then all neutrals get to act (run around and hide, riveting stuff to watch play out)

During you your turn, each of you characters has Action Points you can spend to do stuff. Shooting costs some points. Walking costs, but running is cheaper and louder. Crouching costs more. Opening a door costs some points. Aiming to get a better shot adds to the cost of shooting. Everything you want to do costs some precious points. Any leftover is carried to the next round, where each merc gets more points based on some math regarding attributes and wounds.

It’s not revolutionary game design. Many games have done this before and since, but JA2 is the one I love to death.

Action Points

“Action Points” is something I always wanted to make work.

Here’s the thing though: Bookkeeping sucks. Maybe if you’re into super crunchy simulationist type games, you’d disagree with me, but in my general experience with modern games, players, and sensibilities, most people don’t want to track so much stuff anymore. To each their own, and all that.

But I want Action Points to work. I have wanted to make that work for many, many years. Problem is, you’d have to count what you use up for each action, count how much you get back each turn, count how much you aren’t getting back for reasons, and keep all those numbers straight besides all the mechanics and numbers a TTRPG of a not rules-lite persuasion requires. Let alone all the other tactical stuff like positioning, effects, line of sight, and and and.

Pathfinder 2 sort of has action points? Everyone gets 3 of them. An action, any action, costs 1 or more of these points. That does seem like a streamlined version of what I’m talking about, and I think it works well from the few times I’ve played it.

But I want something a bit more dynamic. Something that feels a bit more like spending a resource or currency to act and react during a fight.

So. How do we track these points without burning through our character sheet by constantly marking and erasing our current pool of action points? Well, easy: Tokens. You have some sort of physical representation of the your points collected as a pool in front of you. You want to do something, take as many tokens as it requires and remove them from you pool. You earn points, add tokens. Surely, that has been done before.

It’s not enough, though. Counting literally beans is better than marking and erasing, but it still feels a little shallow. Just a transaction made. The points/tokens/legumes are just a currency and nothing more.

Okay, but what if we give the tokens more design weight? What if action points don’t just gate the actions, but are the action?

What if we make them dice?

Dice Pools

Many games use dice pools (I grew up on Shadowrun and Vampire, which use d6 and d10 dice pools respectively). Dice pools are as old as games that use dice. And they all work differently—sometimes slightly, sometimes drastically. Sometimes you roll them all and look for any result of 5 or 6. Other games just want you to keep the highest result. Or they explode, letting you reroll any dice that land on the highest value.

Here’s what I’m thinking.

Picture this. It’s your turn to act in a fight while playing generic TTRPG title. Before you are a bunch of six-sided dice, and the start of your turn, you add a bunch more. And with them, you can do some minor things like moving around or interacting with the environment. Simply remove however many points it costs to do these things from the pool. Easy.

But when you do something cool, like attacking an enemy or casting a spell or operating a murder drone hovering far above the arena, you don’t just remove the dice from the pool. Instead, you pick them up and roll them. Better yet: you can add more dice from that pool to power up the action. You aim your shot, you charge your spell, you put the drone into overdrive.

Now the action points aren’t just tokens. They are the core dice mechanic of the game. They are easy to track, and getting a shit-ton of them feels great. Picking them up, adding a few more for good measure, and making the roll becomes how you track your points. Your actions. It’s tactile. It’s engaging. Dice pools are awesome.

Core Mechanic

Okay, you start your turn, you’ve got a dozen or so dice in front of you. You attack an enemy, which costs something like 4 dice, so you pick those up, ready to roll. Rolling more dice is better for your odds/damage/effect, you think, so you grab four more. Or even eight. Grab them all, right? The more the better, and you refill the pool next turn anyways.

That’s not very interesting. While something like it could be a valid thing to do in a fight, it’d be better if thinking about how and when to spend your points was core to the gameplay.

I mentioned smaller actions earlier. Actions that don’t require a roll but cost points nonetheless. Moving one or more spaces on a grid could cost points–one action point per grid. Using a consumable, like a healing potion or grenade, could cost some small number of points. Switching weapons, reloading, you get the idea.

Active defense could costs points. Spend action points to dodge attacks or block with your weapon. Maybe you roll dice here, though for the sake of speed of resolution, off-turn reactions like that could just be a cost you spend and it happens. If you get shot at for, let’s say 4 damage (whatever that means), spend up to 4 action points to reduce that damage by the same amount. Maybe get a free move if you reduce the damage to zero, dodge-rolling out of the way like it’s Dark Souls. Or spend the cost of your weapon to apply its Block Value against an incoming melee strike.

You could also make multiple attacks if have you lots of points to spend, targeting multiple enemies at once with a barrage of arrows or a whirlwind of daggers.

Once we realize that every action costs some sort of points, on and off turn, we would have to think twice before pouring all of our dice into a single attack. We wouldn’t want to be left stranded, unable to move or dodge or block.

So, what happens when you roll the dice you spend on your actions? I’m thinking you’re looking for each die to show a certain number or higher. 4+ for example. These are Hits, and the more of them you get, the better. Once again tempting you to pour more action points into your dice pool.

I think there are a lot interesting ways to use dice pools like this, and in the future I’ll go over my iterations and ideas.

Conclusion

Dice pools are awesome.

Action points make fights feel more dynamic–instead of just a getting a main and a minor action of some sort, the player gets to decide precisely how their turn plays out. It opens up the design space in interesting ways, allowing for a whole lot of abilities, perks, traits, upgrades to interact with the dice pool in many different aspects. Making defense part of the action points might help players staying engaged outside of their turn. Maybe there is room for some sort of interrupt actions players can use their points on to mess with enemies.

One big issues I see right out of the gate: do enemies/NPC also get action points and dice pools? Must the GM track those for all monsters, do they get a large pool to spend on all of them? Well, I have Thoughts on enemy design and the role of the GM in general, so that’s something we’ll dig into in the future as well.

Spoiler warning: I have iterated on these concepts quite a bit already, and my current WiP, Project Star Quest, uses these very ideas as its core system.

I will talk about the different iterations and ideas in future posts as I catch you up with what Project Star Quest is, where it’s at, and how we got there.

Until then,

Catchphrase; sign off.