What Makes a Good RPG Mechanic?

[@MiguelAngelSanchezCogolludo]

I can't express how much i love your definition of roleplaying 😊 About classical hit points, I tend now more as "combat points" , how much combat you can stand, so, when youI reach 0 hit points, you can't defend yourself anymore, and the next blow will kill you.

[@Hawkeye446]

The mcdm RPG Draw Steel does HP in a very interesting way to me. At 0 HP you are dying, bleeding out, but since Draw Steel is a game about heroes you can still act while dying, you just take damage each time you act, and you go far enough into the negative then you die. It's like in the climax of a movie where the hero is beat all to heck, but is pushing on through the pain. Fighting on even if it's killing them because that's what heroes do. Or you can just play dead and wait for your allies to heal you up. Whatever works for your character and the situation. Regardless, the mechanic is very fun and exciting

[@TheTombofLimeGaming]

@@Hawkeye446 That is cool! I think games that have a sort of 'critical injury' system can have a similar feel, but I do like the idea that when you're in that state that _doing stuff_ accelerates your problems rather than just waiting 'x amount of time.'

[@weylins]

That's pretty much how combat works in FFG' Star Wars and Legend of the Five Rings... Endurance is burned through before you take any telling blow. Once you're out of Endurance, any hit rolls on the Critical chart. In L5R there is even an option to forgo all defense in exchange for possibl6 delivering a devastating attack yourself.... instead of Endurance, the enemy's attack if it hits goes straight to the Critical chart.

[@JeanPhilippeBoucher]

On Drive points and similar "adrenaline" mechanics -- I think they fail because they take the unconscious and uncontrollable side of characters and make them into a highly controlled, calculated currency. (thus breaking all 3 pillars.) This is a gripe I have with limited use per day abilities. Even if they make solid gameplay balancing tools the limitation is often arbitrary or unrelatable. Like a mixed metaphor between how tools works and how human performance works. I much prefer spending a stamina currency or health or some other shared ressource and having to ask myself tactical questions that better match those my character would be asking themselves in this context.

[@TheTombofLimeGaming]

Yes! I think the in-character framing is more like 'if I push myself, I'll suffer for it,' so mechanics that reflect that, rather than an arbitrary store of points might feel more consequential, more _human._

[@JeanPhilippeBoucher]

@@TheTombofLimeGaming that's where my mind is yeah. Otherwise the awkward roleplay framing where the characters can be both emptied and full of vigor gets in the way of connecting with the character's context.

[@Primaeval]

Good stuff, Matt. Same page.

[@Insideadee]

Really interesting video. That’s got me thinking. Let’s take combat, probably the least ‘roleplaying’ aspect of a RPG. Usually combat is ‘game’ NOT ‘roleplay’ . I like games so that’s ok for me, but if combat was redesigned to maximise ‘roleplay’ then it would have to take the players through some experiences over the table. Firstly the fight,flight freeze dilemma that would occur at the initiation of combat. Previous life experience in combat (either through training or just life) would give characters more agency to choose whether to fight, flight, freeze so perhaps some dice rolling with some improved modifiers Unexperienced characters would have their responses determined more by their core characteristics and pre-dispositions gained from their role/career etc. some dice-rolling modified to drive more freeze or flight responses. The characters that score best of fight would I think have the option to go first in a combat round. Using this sort of approach I think allows ‘initiative’ rolls as traditionally based get put in the bin. With something that reflects the more human experience replacing it. So what happens at flight? To me that feels like stepping out of the space of immediate harm. That space is determined by character perceptions,- ducking, dodging, hunkering into a defensive posture and running away I’d all put in a ‘flight’ bracket. Experience with combat and the characters role/career should give them more agency to choose but fundamentally they won’t be able to cause harm to their opponent until they can ‘fight’. Flight is position where the character is less likely to be harmed (opponents dice allowing of course) Freeze the worst possible outcome places the character in a vulnerable position where they are the easiest to harm. Fight- says what it does on the tin. When fightinging the options available should be 1) cause harm- this is any action that will harm the opponent if the fight action is successful. 2) Assist Harm- this is any action that will assist another causing harm. 3) Overwhelm- this is any fight action that will inhibit the opponent causing harm, grappling, pinning down with covering fire, distracting them, scaring them etc 4) Avoid Harm- anything that is an all out effort to avoids harm from an opponent. Does not move the character out of the space where that can cause harm unless they want too. Simple mechanic choices like the ones above make for a combat experience that is as much about each character having to manage their own predisposition to combat as the situation iteself. I don’t like hit points- I prefer two tallies . Tally one is how distracted your character is. Pain, tiredness fear are all distractions from being able to function normally. These are tallied as minus points. Which modify pretty much everything a character can do. Injuries are a tally only the dM sees. They indicate the closeness of death. A player with high wisdom might get a range idea but only skilled healers would be able to get a chance to discern the exact closeness. Harm therefore deals two outcomes injury and distraction. A splinter under the fingernail may cause very little injury for example but cause a massive amount of distraction. A broken neck might cause massive injury (may kill for example) but very little distraction. The interplay between injury and distraction results in some very roleplayable outcomes. The possibilities of a character to overcome the distractions is always determined by the characters build and the players choices. Any core stat can be used to overcome distractions temporarily - wisdom my character looks at the wound roll a dice to see if they can wave it off as not that bad even though it hurts like hell. My character will not let others see how much it hurts - roll a dice to see if your charasima pulls that off. My character is tough I’ll grit my teeth an bear it- roll constitution, my character has a displined mind and won’t let their thoughts wander to how much it hurts- roll intelligence. Critical fails and critical successes can play an interesting part here.

[@heliomachit5651]

Amazing ideas! Instantly ripping these off and renaming them and calling them my own(Jk.)

[@stm7810]

The second for second combat I'm working with isn't just to be "realistic, it's not, it's there because the system is based a lot on anime, and in that a 10 or less second fight takes up a whole episode. Health rules are brutal with limbs, bleeds, the struggle to stay conscious and fight the pain, because these things happen in good stories. the stats are less fine grain though, because rarely does a guy being a little above average in speed or strength matter, 5 human levels is enough, pitiful, poor, average, good, amazing. the nuance comes from things working together, like even if average strength you might know a martial art.

[@rolestream]

Most excellent video. Wish I'd found you sooner.

[@chocolatebunnies6376]

Drive points could be a good name for HP, similar to how many groups translate HP to resolve.

[@chocolatebunnies6376]

I’ve been thinking about fear mechanics a lot, for my system. It’s currently represented mainly by the option of fleeing. Characters by default do not risk harm when they remove themselves from a situation (this rule will always be subject to adjustment to adhere to the fiction.) The setback will be to overall progress, and the twist is that the gm may have slightly exaggerated the immediate danger (there’s a system for this) to represent the characters’ perspective, so the players may have let fear get the better of them needlessly. (So this doesn’t align with real life, as fear may just as well be what starts a fight IRL, but this is a game about people who are naturally inclined to run away. I don’t want to tell people to roleplay as that, I want to present the world from the perspective of such characters, and then let the players choose how to react to that. Edit: (Due to not getting to playtest it sufficiently frequently, I keep forgetting aspects of it.) The players having a fight-type response to fear can happen in this system.) Then there’s the panic mechanic, where the players, when the characters are fleeing or performing a desperate action, may choose an extremely random roll which may hinder the opposition or the characters or fall somewhere in between.

[@SeldonnHari]

In role-playing games, I think there are multiple modes of play in the same way when we live life there are multiple modes of experience. In one instance, there is the immersive experience of life where we are experiencing what happens from moment to moment, making decisions, and experiencing the outcomes. And there is the reflective aspect of experiencing things, where we are reflecting on what we have done and experience and projecting and reflecting what our perceptions on those past experiences are. This will have instances in real life where what people 's experience of what happened is in some sense is different than what actually happened almost as though remembering and re-coding memories is a type of meta-currency retroactively applied to life. Similarly, I think in role play you can be role-playing but not in the lens of things happening in the moment but in a conversation where what's happening is reflective and transitory.

[@SalsaDoom1840]

I think there is a difference between collaborative "story telling" as an author, and "roleplaying", in the moment towards an uncertain future.

[@nickroland4610]

A welcomed perspective! I appreciate you laying it out. Have you considered or seen any systems that touch on or call attention to this view point?

[@SeldonnHari]

@@nickroland4610 I personally think most ttrpgs do this, in that player will describe what they do and then revise it when the GM tells them the consequences they should have anticipated had they had a more full picture. Because of the nature of language as the medium, there is a continual back and forth and establishing of the fiction where what's happening is built collaboratively. Blades in the Dark has many examples of this be it position and effect, flashbacks, or selecting your load for a heist. In the case of "load" the play chooses light, medium, or heavy each with their own fictional consequences. But then during the heist when you need an item you mark a box and you have it, only able to do it a number of times depending on your "load". You in the moment need a specific item and the mechanics allow you to in retrospect say that you had thought to bring it along. Flashbacks are another great example of this, you roll play a scene in the past to justify establishing a fictional reality in the present. I think every game has some degree of not being completely pulled into first person roleplay. Even if you are claiming to be completely in character in order for your character to fit at the table and I. The setting you had to and have to craft their behavior from a meta level to adhere to the social contract of the type of game your playing. If as you're role-playing you think the character might do something that would completely detail the fun for the other players, you make a different meta decision and re-shape in retrospect why your character did that and reform who they were to have made that decision. But even then, when you think of your character and where you might want them to go you're engaging in meta contemplation that isn't roleplay I think that's okay and even preferred

[@nickroland4610]

@@SeldonnHari Thanks for the reply, but now I feel silly. I've actually ran a few campaigns of Blades/Forged in the Dark, and realize now we are talking about slightly different things. But you are quite correct! Most of the mechanics in Blades really does allow for and ask of the player/GM to take apart and analyze the situation in a sort of "hindsight" or "relfective" way. Good examples! I somehow had it in my head that you meant a quite more literal reflecting on the past, some sort of mechanic or semi-structured play where the player/PC combo are asked to reflect on their choices and activities made previously, and that is somehow affected by or reinforces the mechanics of the system at hand. Either way, appreciate your comment. More Blades exposure is always a good thing!

[@SeldonnHari]

@@nickroland4610 That reflective mechanic is actually in Blades, XP awards. At the end of the session players reflect on their play and what occurred meditating on how their play fit into the parameters of rp to get XP. They get their good stars at the end of the session. But psychological that act reinforces and reforms everything that happened at the table. On top of that, Blades has a meta currency the same way as a game like Burning Wheel or Mouse Guard does. "Stress" while called stress arguably functions entirely as a meta- currency you get rewarded for role-playing a vice. Something happens in the world and you spend the stress to make it disappear(resisting) or something doesn't exist so you use stress to make it appear(flashbacks) or wanting an increased chance of success and extra die for roll(Pushing yourself). Stress is a meta currency that tricks you into thinking it isn't by labeling it stress and tying its acquisition into the game play loop of indulging your vice. It's just invasive and well designed. I recently played FATE and hated how date points took me out of the fiction and felt overly mechanical. Much like compels for FATE points Devils Bargains are like that but in the moment the players accept or even create a new element that wasn't there before for the meta currency of an extra die in the moment. It is meta the extra dice is in no way reflective of any extra skill, ability, or thing the character has but the player trading their fictional creation for a bonus die.

[@Trekiros]

I don't quite subscribe to the idea that defining goals for your game is "wriggling out" of the problem of figuring out what makes a good mechanic. In fact you yourself start your own video by defining what experience you want your game to provide, by defining what roleplay means to you as an ideal that you want your games to strive towards, and then spend the rest of the video judging mechanics based on whether or not they help deliver that experience that you've defined as your goal. You present those as assumptions, but they aren't - they're your goals. The discussion of how a mechanic can help make space for character-driven decisions is an interesting one, for sure, but framing it as what makes "good" mechanics is wrong imo.

[@coriandercastor9453]

This. There is still room for the classical RPG, wherein war gaming is the crux.

[@blahthebiste7924]

He also clarifies that he largely believes those elements to be essential to what makes the TTRPG genre.

[@TheTombofLimeGaming]

Yes, the superordinate goals of your game will make a big difference to what constitutes a good mechanic _for that goal._ Lots of games have _Role-Playing Game_ on the front cover, but that doesn't mean that role-play is their superordinate goal, ie. the goal that takes precedence over the other goals. When making a decision consistent with your character's concept comes into conflict with what makes a good story, which one takes precedence will tell you a lot about what your game is about. However! Even within my definitions of RPGs and role-playing there are endless settings, themes, tones and genres and these all have specific mechanical concerns unique to them. The project here is to say, that for any of these subordinate mechanics, do not lose sight of your superordinate goal! If my superordinate goal is to role-play, then no matter how well your mechanic emulates... I don't know... medieval economics, if it's a detriment to role-playing, I've got to question its inclusion in a _role-playing game!_

[@Trekiros]

@@TheTombofLimeGaming I'll probably leave it at that since you did request to avoid discussions that fall outside the topic of the video, but Again, what you define role-playing as, seems to me like it is more your goal, than a truth everyone will immediately agree to. For example, my goal when I play/run/design RPGs isn't just to make players make the kind of decisions their characters would make, like in your goal. That's important to me, but I also want to make my players feel the kind of emotions their characters would feel. In other words, when I run a horror game, I don't just want my players to act as though they were scared - I want them to BE scared. That's an important difference because for example, since you don't care about this goal, it makes pretty much all forms of tactical combat unable to contribute to your goal. After all, in tactical combat, characters usually make tactical choices, not character-driven choices. But in tactical combat, even if I don't get one of my two goals met, I still get the second one. If things are going well, my players are feeling like the smartest people in the world. And if things are going poorly, they're panicking - just like their characters are probably doing in that situation. So because my goal includes making my players feel those kinds of feelings, one mechanic that's fine for me is not going to be fine for you. My definition for roleplay isn't more or less correct than yours. It's broader (sicne I have two goals instead of one) and more lenient (since I'm okay with having only one of my two goals met at a time), but that's not necessarily a good or a bad thing - it's just different. So yeah, the topic of, how do we get players to make decisions as their characters, that's an interesting discussion. It's definitely helpful to think about that, even with my slightly different goals than yours. But presenting it as the objective truth of what roleplay is, and dismissing any mechanic which contributes to a different goal as universally bad, is rather narrow-minded imo. Figuring out what your goals are isn't "wriggling out" of a game design discussion. It is where the process of game design starts. There's lots of resources on that (Dan Felder "Game Design Toolbox" has a bunch of examples going in depth on that topic) Ultimately though, this is probably just a semantics argument, where we agree on the substance but not on the presentation. Which means, probably a waste of time for everyone involved to argue about 😅

[@TheTombofLimeGaming]

Hold up! Who says I don’t care about immersion? I think immersion is great! In fact, I have a video on it (kzbin.info/www/bejne/i6alq2l_jZ5pg6c) I just don’t put role-play _subordinate_ to it in a role-playing game. But that’s OK, because I think getting role-play right is the key to an immersive experience. Consider that what the other players say is crucial to your immersion - so if in your horror game the other players are joking around and not taking things very seriously it’s going to impact your ability to get immersed, but if they are role-playing a certain way (ultimately, whether _they_ are immersed or not) it can maintain _your_ immersion. Having players committed to role-play as their superordinate goal will end up facilitating immersion; a commitment to in-character role-play is easily one of the best facilitators of character immersion! _‘I don't just want my players to act as though they were scared - I want them to BE scared.’_ Do you want your players to _be_ in pain when their character is injured, or is it ok if they just _role-play_ being in pain?
 Trekiros: the BDSMGM! 😆 
I jest, but I think strange stuff happens if you put role-play _subordinate_ to immersion. I will reject your notion of tactical combat though - real warriors have been making tactical decisions in the heat of combat for millennia without tokens, grid squares or being able to pause the battle and think about optimal plays. Tactics have existed far longer than ‘tactical combat’ board games, and you can still have tactics in combat that is entirely in-character. I have a video covering that, too: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oIK6qpqmn9mYpqs. _’Figuring out what your goals are isn't "wriggling out" of a game design discussion. It is where the process of game design starts.’_

 I see what you’re saying, but at some point if you’ve decided to call your game a _role-playing game_ as opposed to any other kind of game, you have made some statement about the content of that game. Surely calling it that is to say that role-play is the most important, most salient, most primary aspect that defines what the game is about, otherwise you’d call it something more relevant. After that then, you can add other goals to your game, like immersion, or being in a gritty fantasy world or being a space pirate, or tactical combat or whatever, but if at any point tactical combat becomes more important than role-play to your game, then maybe you’ve made a ‘tactical combat game with role-play elements,’ instead.

[@yamitrap9688]

Came for what I thought would be a discussion about how to inhabit perspectives outside the human experience, stayed for the dive into what makes a good mechanic. Thanks for the video! I really like the PBTA games for this reason, moat of the game is spent asking and answering in a very natural and direct fashion and there's little to no difference between 'social' 'combat' 'exploration' etc in terms of the perception of time.

[@bonzwah1]

I actually think fate points, combined with character aspects, do a great job of helping a player make decisions from the perspective of their character. - But the key is that you need to have well written aspects that clearly define your character’s goals, temptations, and core competencies. - Once you have those in place, the game rewards the players with increased chances of success for pursuing their character goals and motivations and sticking to their core competencies…but it does so in a way that leaves you needing more fate points and it offers them to you through compels. In this way, the player is tempted the same way that the character is tempted. I think it is very elegant design that is very roleplay centric. It touches on all of your major points when it comes to game mechanics allowing the player to experience the world in a very human way. Ive personally not run into many games that do a better job than FATE at really getting players to view their characters’ flaws and troubles in a way that captures that mixture of reluctance and temptation that the characters themselves must be feeling. - Having said all that, i actually dislike FATE for other reasons. I think its good at roleplay but not good at being a game haha. Which is ironic, since i feel that you would say the opposite. But i truly believe that you are just making an active decision to try to play FATE in a way that you won’t like, because you’ve already decided you dont like FATE points. Personally, i think that comes down to first impressions and presentation. And so i feel that if you were introduced to FATE points as “drive points” or “willpower” then you might have developed a different first impression and ended up engaging with the system differently. But you cant just change the presentation now and expect it to change anything. Your impressions are already set, and it would take a very flexible mind to really engage with the mechanics with a fresh perspective.

[@jaykaye594]

A big factor in this issue is short-run versus long-run goals. Games like Dread and Fiasco are great for role-playing short campaigns, 2-4 sessions, but offer not much in the way of progression.

[@RilliEki]

Hit Points are not good mechanic! I would love to rp the injuries my character has suffered, but there must be away to translate that to the game in a meaninful way. Disadvantage is something like that in modern dnd.

[@BetterMonsters]

Incredible video. First I've seen, instant subscribe. I think there's a space where mechanics made to incentivize certain story structures and mechanics made to enhance a roleplaying experience converge; humans often understand their own experience through narratives, and those narratives are shaped the dominant narrative forms of our culture. Spellburn and Roll-to-Cast in DCC don't really map onto any element of my lived experience, but they feel more satisfying than spell slots because they map well onto the vicarious experiences I've had through narrative fiction. The panic table in Alien, to my mind, is certainly a tool for sculpting story to fit horror tropes, but it's also a helpful tool for roleplaying a sort of character that belongs in the tropey default setting and is familiar to us, but behaves very differently than we imagine that we would do.

[@TheTombofLimeGaming]

I think you're right about how humans understand their experience through narratives, but I feel it might be more that we _contextualise_ our experiences with narratives after we've lived them, not that we have a narrative mindset whilst performing the actions that we later tell stories about. The difference for me is that games that attempt to impose narrative features _during_ the action might end up skewing the experience into a narrative structure before the proper time (and that that might affect in-the-moment agency for the player or their ability to meaningfully contextualise that experience themselves). I don't mind the Alien panic table - I was just remembering some potential problems like screaming causing another character to panic, causing them to scream, causing the original screamer to panic, causing them to scream, infinite scream cycle that I've seen people mention! I'm working on my own stress and panic system... we'll see if I can put my money where my mouth is and come up with a better one or not! Magic systems are an interesting thing to think about when it comes to asking how intuitive it is. It's probably a more downstream concern than I've covered in this video, but I have no doubt there are more and less intuitive systems given a specific setting, but I'd say that magic was more heavily dependent on setting than things we do have real world knowledge of.

[@BetterMonsters]

@@TheTombofLimeGaming Definitely excited to see that stress and panic system when those ideas are done percolating; better or not, any system made with a clear design intent and eye toward how it'll feel at the table is bound to be interesting.

[@feralgamersincrpg]

Just subscribed, and was wondering what your recommended game systems are, what games do you enjoy playing?

[@ChristopherRoss.]

I would add a rule 0, which (at least in role playing _games_ ) should supersede rules 1 and 2: Rule 0: all of the following should first serve the purpose of fun and/or engagement of everyone at the table.

[@TheZenJosh]

Love your videos buddy very thoughtful an insightful

[@grindingmantras7434]

What do you think about effort mechanic? So you basically regain effort after resting, eating and sleeping. And you can use effort dice to overcome challenges. Encounters eqaul to your attribute pass automaticcaly and without a roll. The difficulty of an encounter can become more if other factors come to play, such distracted and so on. It can also lower if a player for example uses the environment.

[@Azlinea]

I think an example of what an ideal mechanic looks like would have helped this video a lot. Specifically might have helped showcase what you mean by humanity and human experience, which sounds like it should be obvious but isn’t to me. I can backtrack the idea of having to spend a limited resource to not have a facet pop up in a hugely detrimental way to experiences in my life. I don’t ever seem to get the token when I do let the detriment happen, and there are usually still issues when I do spend, but whatever. I can also backtrack the difference between someone who gets a +2 from training in persuasion/social skills compared to someone who has high charisma. Neither of these systems speak to whole aspects of reality, but nothing in an rpg will, but they are ways you can look at the world and understand it if you hold on to the metaphors very lightly. So what does a game built with emulating human experience in mind look like? Changeling the lost, 2nd edition specifically comes to mind, for its attempt at grappling with the myriad ways and forms abuse survivorship takes? Bluebeard’s bride for putting players in the position of fighting over control of one character who is in a completely unbalanced power dynamic against a spooky antagonistic character? Blades in the dark for pushing yourself so you can score big, so you can fill up your retirement plan and finally get out (a pipedream)?

[@CumulusRPG]

An example was given - The stress mechanic from the Alien RPG. And here is why I think the video argues for it being good: 1. Verisimilitude: The stress mechanic reflects how stress and adrenaline work in real life. As your stress increases, you become more alert and capable, but also more prone to mistakes or panic. This aligns with our understanding of how stress affects human performance. 2. Translation: The mechanic translates the character's mental state into a number on the character sheet. This number then influences your dice rolls, giving you more dice (increasing your chances of success) but also increasing your chance of panicking. It takes the abstract concept of stress and gives players a concrete way to understand and interact with it. 3. Humanity: The mechanic gives players an intuitive sense of what it feels like to be under stress. The push-and-pull between increased capability and increased risk of failure mirrors our human experience of stress. It doesn't require players to make decisions in an overly abstract or inhuman way.

[@Azlinea]

@@CumulusRPG Which is why my feedback was looking for an “ideal” mechanic because you might have upgraded the claim that this is a good example but the video says basically its an ok example at 12:37 . And also that was just the opening to the point of “what does humanity mean in this context” which I think is the most interesting, and under-represented, part of this video. But lets look at the humanity of alien rpg’s stress mechanic. It adds dice, increasing the likelihood of success, but those dice become a double edged sword with the possibility of consequences. Ok that seems about right. But what about the long term ramifications of sudden, large spikes or maintaining lower levels for prolonged periods? I don’t have access to this game so I do not actually know. Does the game have mechanics for the crash after a super stressful moment? I’m not really going to address the attached panic system here, nor do I think it answers any of my questions really. A focus on the double edged sword, long term ramifications or short term consequences are all part of the human experience, but what a designer chooses to build mechanics for and therefore focus on in their rpg is going to shape the sort of roleplaying we are being encouraged to do by the game. Which is why I’m suggesting focusing in on what human experience means as it might bring out more clarity to the arguments and help encourage dialogue to further refine those points.

[@CumulusRPG]

@@Azlinea Your comment is making me realize that these pillars might be too interconnected to be individually useful. As you discussed the 'humanity' of the stress mechanic, I found myself thinking, 'That sounds like you're considering the degree of verisimilitude and how it translates to the player experience.' I'm beginning to wonder if the solution might be to collapse all of these aspects of good mechanics into a single concept: intuitiveness. This could potentially provide a more streamlined framework for evaluating RPG mechanics.

[@Azlinea]

@@CumulusRPG Yeah sorry I realized I never said this but I have just kind of been ignoring verisimilitude (don’t like the feel of the argument but can’t articulate why yet) and translation (its not a pillar its just the basic function of communication from mental space into physical, whether to yourself or others). The interesting thing to me, obviously, is the claim that humanity is worth valuing over say scientific realism or tactical balance or insert thing here. I’d be weary of calling it intuitiveness, like humanity is a good name for it if you run under the idea that humanity is the electromagnetic spectrum and not just 7 visible colors of light, for fear of running into a different issue I’ve had with fate, which is, everyone gets so worked up about “short and pithy” taglines that they forget what they were going for later. Godbound has a vaguely similar mechanic in it and says something along the lines of “one to two sentences at most”. Might be misremembering. The reason the D20 was used for combat in dnd originally certainly isn’t intuitive, that its very swingy thus making combat a big gamble (not 100% on this, just story time), but its definitely /a/ read of combat. All that to say, YAY looking forward to seeing more “anthropocentric” rpg designers and their ideas :)

[@MilesAwayGames]

Perfect opener. Subbed.

[@joshbennett5592]

I think you’ve just explained the disconnect I have with most skill systems!

[@bharl7226]

I’m curious, elaborate?

[@whyareyoubothering]

Oooooh overthinking game mechanics channel? Easy sub.

[@ko_PEAK]

Thx God I found your channel. Thanks for your every video

[@rangleme]

I enjoyed this - nice video.

[@somerando8615]

So luck mechanics. Edge in Shadowrun, Luck in Cyberpunk, Fate in Fate. What if they were something that existed in the setting, like the force out of Star Wars? This brings you out of character because the player is making meta-game decisions around the meta-economy of their meta currencies. But if it was modeling something in setting that the people living there are somewhat aware of, like "this is how magic works". Would that be an improvement? It would help verisimilitude.

[@TheTombofLimeGaming]

Yeah, in some Star Wars RPGs they have that light side/dark side meta currency that the players can use to help them but if they do it gives the GM additional power to hinder them. If the force works like that, it might make sense, but I doubt that it would make sense from the character's perspective. Would I, in trying to embody my character and make decisions for them, really consider that being lucky (in this case _choosing_ to be lucky, somehow) might make an enemy stronger later? I don't think so. I think luck might be better left to the dice. If you continually roll well... well you're lucky! Putting luck in your game mechanically might just be a desire to have the 'protagonists' of the story be more likely to succeed by virtue of the fact that they are the protagonists. To me that emulates story structure, not a verisimilitudinous world, and thus, may not be appropriate for a game where you want that kind of world!

[@ChristopherRoss.]

I think it can be very difficult to gamify the human experience. The pillars of verisimilitude and humanity are diametrically opposed. Human experience is unique to every individual, and to reduce it to common denominators limits the level of humanity that can be experienced in a mechanic. The ideal human state of game play is one where there are no rules, only human action and reaction, but that is the opposite of reduction in arbitration. Thus, creating elegant rules that facilitate humanity are extremely difficult, and to do so without it being zero sum is near impossible, at least while being thorough or robust or encompassing. Ludo humanitarian harmony is rare to come by. So, what is the solution? How does one create a role playing game that elegantly facilitates role play? For me, that is the simulationist perspective. To limit mechanics to what is objective in the world, and stay away from the subjective experience of the characters, and instead inform their experience through what is concrete in the world. The mechanics won't inform what a character feels about losing a leg in combat, but instead limits or expands how they can interact with the world as a result of it, which then helps inform the subjective experience of it. The drawback is that there is no mechanical incentive for people to roleplay; but then if our goal is only to facilitate it (not encourage it), we have already succeeded.

[@TheTombofLimeGaming]

I see verisimilitude as the _appearance_ of ‘realness’ not the _approximation_ of realness, and since appearance is dependent on human sense perception, I see verisimilitude as _dependent_ on humanity. That human experience is subjective becomes a feature, not a bug, under this regime because the touchstones of commonality between human experiences is as deep as the mechanics need to go, and the rest can be left to the individual, allowing individuality to shape the game and the imaginary world. I like this! It means that each group of players brings something different to each game, and we can never be sure what this admixture will end up producing! So, despite subjectivity of experience, we know that humans operate in similar frequencies of the visual spectrum and sound, use similar neurological structures, neurotransmitters, hormones and so on, so despite variation, we have enough in common to share relevant features of the world we inhabit. An imaginary world is perhaps _more_ subjective, but any feature made explicit by the players is shared between them. Let’s say that the players encounter a corpse in the imaginary world - subjectivity permits all manner of variations on the features of the corpse, but would not permit one of the players to ‘see’ them as _alive._ All the subjective features remain so until made explicit through description or interaction, adding to the shared elements of the world. This is perfectly copacetic with how we build imaginative images in other mediums, like reading a novel, so just as immersive, just as human. Mechanics that operate at a similar level, the level of verisimilitude, of the appearance of realness, can work in the same way. 5 out of 10 hit points (or whatever) can be subjectively interpreted, but they only really need to be interpreted when relevant, and the player can use that abstraction to interpret it for themselves, making it explicit by role-playing it, adding to the game world as described above. To me, ludo-human harmony is less about having mechanics map to human experience (great if you can manage it!) than about _allowing_ for a human experiential sense of the game world to flourish, to get out of the way of humanity, not replace it with mathematical approximations. Facilitating humanity may be as simple as just not precluding it and attempts to create accurate models of things in the game world often end up being self defeating (by increasing complexity beyond human cognitive capacity). All in all, I think I agree with your conclusions (although we got there along different routes), we _should_ stay away from mechanising subjective experience (leave that to the players), and to me, that _is_ what ludo-human harmony looks like - ludology that _allows_ for humanity, but am I a simulationist? I don’t know if they’d let me in the club because I only want to simulate to the depth of human cognition. To simulate beyond human cognition starts to introduce ludo-human dissonance, _in my opinion!_

[@FalkFlak]

Hey, these are some bright game design ideas, indeed. One doesn't come across that very often in RPG design.

[@Matt_Volk]

Emulation is what I've heard others call it, if I've understood you correctly... I have some players who get too bogged down in the immersion that they lose the sense of humanity at the table. For example, I love how you explain why relating your HP or other stats to other characters (out of character, of course) is actually better for the emulation.

[@TrillTheDM]

Great video as usual!

[@brain_snakes]

I have been developing an RPG off and on with the goal of making combat and social play more or less seamless. Two ideas I've been messing with have been a wound system to replace health points, and an instinct system to make character decisions more mechanically geared towards actually role-playing as your character. Both of these mechanics are not complete, but here's my basic thinking: For wounds, when a given a character takes any amount of damage to a particular part of the body (currently most creatures are divided into head, upper body, lower body, and each limb). That character then incurs a wound which is determined by which body part was damaged and how badly. (E.G. taking even a small amount of cutting damage to the head may result in a damaged eye or an opened jugular, while taking a high amount of blunt damage to the stomach may result in internal bleeding.) These wounds inflict status effects upon the player (almost always negative) which include things like minor pain that reduces most skill checks, the total incapacitation of an arm or a leg, and even instant death (such as in the case of a penetrated heart or skull). So the experience goes from "The bison charges you and knocks you flat on the ground. You take 10 points of damage." To "The bison charges you and knocks you flat on the ground. You feel a sharp pain in the back of your head and a tightness in your chest. You are having trouble breathing." Medical attention would be necessary to know exactly what a character's injuries are and how to treat them. And the always very real possibility of death from even an unskilled farmer wielding a pitchfork given enough carelessness/bad luck should discourage using violence as a default solution. Instincts are meant to basically offer a bonus to an action that is in character and a penalty to actions that are out of character. The more mundane the situation, the less present this mechanic. It's easy to play a part when making small talk with a cashier, less so when you have to choose between saving your partner or a briefcase full of cash from a burning car, and the years your character has spent regularly placing material wealth over human lives goes into the split second decision you make. Does your character do what comes natural, and risk the rest of the team finding out where his priorities actually lie? Or does he fight against his instincts and try to free his friend, the whole time his own internal battle reducing his ability to focus and potentially resulting in his friend dying anyways or himself getting seriously burned. But no matter how successful he is, the choice to go against decades of ingrained behavior will be a formative moment for that character going forward. It makes the internal battle anybody must endure when making a difficult decision you logically know to be correct but that goes against your habits present in the mechanics of a game. So doing what comes naturally will always be easier, but it may or may not always be best. It also kind of makes it impossible to "fail" at role-playing your character. Anybody can decide to do something that goes against their character, but sometimes the sheer amount of behavioral inertia you're attempting to defy is simply to much. Imagine an extremely passive person finally deciding to let their boss have a piece of their mind, only to manage being slightly less enthusiastically cooperative than usual.

[@yamitrap9688]

I dig these! Is this system you're making based on any extant system? And what dice are you using mainly? I'm trying to think about how I would adapt these mechanics to Dungeon World.

[@brain_snakes]

@@yamitrap9688 Thanks! It began as a response to my issues with D&D, which to this day has been the only RPG I've ever actually played as I used to DM for my friend group. The combat is basically my attempt at translating the combat in Dwarf Fortress to a table top setting. And the instincts were first inspired by vices in Blades in the Dark. While I've never played Blades in the Dark, the mechanic sounded really cool to me. So far I've been pretty committed to using exclusively d6's for everything. At the moment the way checks work is that your character's inborn stats are (such as strength, coordination, etc.) affect your roll with a flat bonus to every die that ranges from -2 to +3. Meanwhile, your character's skill level (swordsmanship, horse riding, etc.) determines the number of dice you roll. So if you're a level 5 sword fighter, you roll 5d6. You then sort your dice from highest to lowest and compare them to the GM's dice, tallying the wins and losses, in the same way that in Risk the attacker and defender compare their dice from highest to lowest. The DC of a task determines the number of dice the GM rolls. The win/loss ratio determines the level of success you achieve.

[@nickroland4610]

​​@@brain_snakes As someone also working on a system that moves away from straight HP, I'd be curious how you plan to solve the logistical problem I'm running into. Let's say a player has racked up a few wounds, all to various parts of their body. They've got a handful of different maluses, mechanically. How are you keeping this from becoming an accounting burden on the player when it comes to resolving rolls? There is a million crit charts out there for different ways to represent wounds, but no easy solution to keep from bogging down players (and gms) to remember "I've got a -1 to using this hand, a -2 to holding my breath due to a damaged lung, disdvantage on climb checks due to more than three broken toes", etc. I have a few rough solution ideas I'd be happy to share if you'd like, but I'm interested to see how other designers tackle this.

[@brain_snakes]

@@nickroland4610 I definitely want to know what you're solution is. Personally I guess I never expected to run into this problem because during what play testing I've done a character is unlikely to rack up so many minor wounds without dying first. This also may or may not translate very well, but due to the way I'm using dice, more often than not any penalty on a check due to a physical disability or injury would come in the form of adding penalty dice. So it would go more like, "I've got a broken hand, broken toes, and a damaged lung." "Ok, add a penalty die to any rolls that require the use of that hand or that foot, and your stamina/endurance stat is halved."

[@nickroland4610]

Regarding your solution, your dice pool system seems like a nice easy solution; more problems, more dice. It will likely quickly skew the bell curve math heavily against the player. If however, like you said, wounds are minimal before death, it shouldnt be too much of a problem. As far as my system goes, my current efforts towards a solution are aimed at keeping the bookkeeping minimal during combat, while still allowing for non-arbitrary narrative wounds to have mechanics. The current big-picture idea I have is to mechanically represent wounds differently between in-combat and out of combat. The degree of which needs to be playtested, but an example: A PC takes a laser burn to the arm, a club to the dome rattling their brainpan, and a tumble down a rocky hill. Each wound is represented by a simple malus token, applying a penalty to either physical or mental rolls (i.e. rolls that use an ability score that are in that category), or a penalty to a given stat based on which body part is injured. (I've gotta playtest more to see which players enjoy more). This simple token will likely be a -1 to -3 to rolls. After combat, when the adrenaline and fervor wind down, the simple wound is resolved to a more detailed status. The laser burn to the arm might be a -1 to my Dexterity equivalent in combat, but it becomes a the "burned arm" status after. It'll have the Burn tag and be of Light severity. It'll affect rolls that involve that arm in skill checks and the like, which is easyer to bookkeep when you're not fighting. I have a more detailed skeleton of this, but this youtube comment is already long. It needs playtesting and doesn't apply to all situations, but it's maybe a step in the right direction.

[@thethan302]

I’ve come to the conclusion that using a mechanic that’s built into the rules to force the players to roleplay (under penalty of negative mechanical consequences); is ultimately a poor mechanic. Role Playing, whether good or bad, is ultimately up to the player to engage in. Therefore people who want to roleplay, are going to roleplay, people who don’t want to roleplay are not going to roleplay. Trying to force it under the threat of penalties is tantamount to the Dm taking control of their character. It’s a “do this or else” approach to the situation. The DM might as well threaten the player with bodily harm if he doesn’t start roleplaying. A better solution is to create rules that facilitate and encourage roleplaying without actually forcing it. Take the Bard class from D&D, it’s a very flavorful class that encourages people to get into a character with a musical bent to him. Nothing is forcing players to actually sing at the table. But the very flavorful mechanics can cause some players to want to sing at the table. They aren’t being penalized for singing; but they aren't getting rewarded for singing either. Utilizing mechanical bonuses or penalties (like fate does for instance) doesn’t actually encourage roleplaying. Instead it encourages players to make mechanical decisions and call it roleplaying. Invoking an aspect in a scene to get that juicy reroll is always the mechanically superior choice. Same with suffering a complication; it’s ultimately better in the long run to regain fate points for your character than not. Sure your recovering alcoholic noir detective falling off the wagon may sound like roleplaying. But in actuality it’s a mechanic that needs to be used in order for that character to get fate points back, which he can then use in the course of his adventures to succeed.

[@CowCommando]

There's a classic example from early World of Warcraft where a change was made so that experience gains would slowly fall off over time during long play sessions and then reset if you stayed logged out for long enough. If I remember right, the devs were worried people would hit the level cap too quickly and get bored, but they framed it as wanting players to be healthy and take breaks from playing. Players _hated_ the system. They felt they were being punished for enjoying the game while the devs kept insisting it was in the players best interest. The backlash was so intense that the devs were forced to removed the feature to keep people from canceling their subscriptions. A while later, the devs announced an exp rebalance. They subtly made it so that players leveled up slower overall compared to previously, but at the same time they advertised a new feature called a "well rested" bonus. When you logged in, you would get an exp bonus applied to all exp gains that would slowly fade over time. The bonus would recharge up to a fixed amount when you were logged out of the game. Players _loved_ it. Overall, the net result was that players leveled slower just like the devs had always wanted. However, players saw the bonus exp every time they logged in and thought the update was the greatest thing ever even though numerically it was effectively the exact same system they had hated previously. The difference was that they felt they were being rewarded for playing instead of punished.

[@anonymouse8953]

Very interesting thougts. Subscribed 👍 What do you think about handing out Stage Direction Cards to the Players from time to time? I use such cards in Horror themed Games to gain social problems for the PC‘s.

[@TheTombofLimeGaming]

When I ran the Alien RPG I used them because... they were in the rules for that game! But I don't know whether I would in future. Ultimately, with good players you shouldn't really need them, as whatever complication you have on the card should be within the players domain to create for themselves based on their character concept (and their desire to play their role should push them towards it). Although I do believe that the GM should be creating a world with plenty of social problems for the characters - ideally, I suppose, character creation should set that all up.

[@SeldonnHari]

I think you have a narrow view on what makes a role-playing game, a storytelling game, and the vin diagram of how they overlap.

[@manofredearth]

It's a circle

[@SeldonnHari]

@@manofredearth Explain

[@nerd8502]

He states clearly in the beginning that this video assumes that people play a Role-Playing Game for the Role-Playing, and wether or not that's actually true is a discussion for another video

[@SeldonnHari]

@@nerd8502 Your phrasing implies it is a binary of how and why people are playing roleplaying games. My next point would be even people who are are attempting to role-play in this purest form will always be engaging in the meta-level and some degree of storytelling.

[@nerd8502]

@@SeldonnHari My point was that you don't go into a video about how to survive the zombies from media X and imply they're wrong because they didn't consider the zombies from media Y. The video was about the role-playing side of RPGs, so it's reasonable that he would talk about the role-playing side while leaving the storytelling side for another time. As for the second point, I don't see how that's relevant. A game trying to focus on role-play isn't trying to eradicate everything that isn't role-play, it's just one that puts role-play in the spotlight. Storytelling and the meta-level are still relevant and most times appreciated, they're simply not the focus. Combine that with the fact that good role-playing doesn't always equate to good storytelling, and you get a game that's good for role-playing specifically, but not that good for the rest. And the same stands for most other aspects of RPGs or games in general.

[@bonzwah1]

I really enjoy your perspectives on game mechanics and the way you describe and illustrate those perspectives. This is despite the fact that i disagree with virtually every take you have on actual existing game mechanics that you have commented on haha. I love your emphasis on the human experience and how games should try to present things to the players in a human way, rather than a scientific one. It has really influenced the way I present and design rpg mechanics.

[@TheTombofLimeGaming]

Well, hey, that might just mean that you've found more intuitive mechanics than I've yet come across. If you've got some recommendations, I'd love to hear them.

[@CumulusRPG]

Hi Matt, I really enjoyed your video and the framework you've proposed for evaluating RPG mechanics. However, I think there's an interesting paradox worth exploring. While D&D mechanics might seem to fit your criteria better on the surface, I'd argue that Fate Points, despite appearing more 'meta', can actually lead to more in-character moments. In D&D, players can often default to simply rolling dice based on their character sheet numbers without deeply considering their character's personality. In contrast, Fate Points require players to actively engage with their character's aspects and justify how these traits apply to the current situation. This suggests that sometimes, mechanics that seem less intuitive or more 'meta' can paradoxically result in more immersive roleplaying. Perhaps a truly good mechanic is one that not only feels natural but also encourages players to actively consider and express their characters' unique traits and perspectives. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this apparent paradox and how it might refine or expand your framework for evaluating RPG mechanics. Thanks for sparking this thought-provoking discussion!

[@TheTombofLimeGaming]

So, my answer to this would be, that to 'actively engage with their character's aspects and justify how these traits apply to the current situation,' should be any players motivation for playing a role-playing game in the first place! Not everyone wants this, of course, some players just want to be 'rolling dice based on their character sheet numbers,' ala board or war games. Do you feel that proceduralising immersive role-play _really is_ being immersed? Or is it just acting the way the GM/game designers desire for an in-game reward?

[@CumulusRPG]

@@TheTombofLimeGaming I've noticed that even in games where players show interest in roleplaying, play often devolves into the most mechanized versions of what the game can be, resulting in almost zero roleplaying. While I don't have a cohesive theory on why this happens, I suspect it's challenging for GMs to maintain forward momentum while encouraging roleplaying, and the structure of the more mechanized parts of the game might feel more comfortable. Your argument through these videos seems to be that mechanics can be detrimental to roleplaying and immersion. I'd add that the space usually controlled by the GM can be just as much of an enabler or deterrent to roleplaying, independent of mechanics. I don't want to believe that having a good roleplaying and immersive experience has to depend on both supportive mechanics and an experienced GM. That's why, as a designer, I hold onto hope that we can add mechanics to our games that democratize good roleplaying experiences. These experiences shouldn't be based on how much experience you have or on your game master's skill, but rather on the game's focus on teaching and scaffolding roleplaying experiences. So, to address your question directly: While proceduralizing immersive roleplay might not be immersion itself, I believe it can be a valuable tool in creating and maintaining an immersive experience, especially when the alternative often seems to be no roleplaying at all. The challenge lies in designing these procedures to feel like natural extensions of character inhabitation rather than external tasks for rewards.

[@TheTombofLimeGaming]

Well, if it’s in your social contract to keep all talk at the table in-character, it is _impossible_ for the game to devolve into mechanised procedures. Your players have to be committed to role-play, and they have to understand (at least) the basic mechanics, and the game has to be able to support this kind of play, but it does solve all these issues. Proceduralising something until someone understands its inherent appeal is something I do understand. I mean, behaviourally, that is how you train an animal, offering food, then replacing food with praise, then reducing praise until the animal internalises what they’re meant to do. But this can backfire, the animal may refuse to perform the procedure if you aren’t supplying the kibble, withholding when there’s no ‘mechanical’ benefit. It might not be ethical, but you could also use negative reinforcement, punishing the absence of the procedure instead. Psychologically, this stuff can happen, it exists as a phenomena, but is that how we should be thinking about our players? So I wonder… are there people that had little interest in role-play that played a game where role-play was mechanically incentivised, learned the inherent appeal of role-play, then were able to play games where there was no mechanical benefit, enjoying it for it’s own sake or a story worth telling at the end or whatever? If that was the case, then maybe you could consider mechanical incentives for role-play the ‘training wheels’ of role-playing games. I doubt many game designers would assent to that train of thought or terminology! 😁 So far the only fool-proof solution I’ve found is to create a KZbin channel espousing role-play’s primacy and you’ll find people who feel the same way and are just as committed to being in-character and the inherent rewards of playing a role that you are, and just play games with them.

[@CumulusRPG]

@@TheTombofLimeGaming 'Are there people that had little interest in role-play that played a game where role-play was mechanically incentivized, learned the inherent appeal of role-play, then were able to play games where there was no mechanical benefit?' I'm not 100% sure that I've found and explored many games with the main focus of mechanically incentivizing role-play. Even though Fate opened my eyes to new ways of mechanizing the world and your character in more holistic ways, I'm not sure that role-play is its primary focus. At the risk of totally straw-manning your position, I'd say that the main issue you've been presenting throughout your videos is that mechanics often get in the way of role-playing. That reality, which I actually agree with and now can hardly stop seeing thanks to you pointing it out, might be coloring your perspective a bit too much. Obviously, in this video you're telling us that there can be good mechanics, so it's not all grim. I think well-designed meta-mechanics can be just as beneficial. Even the most hardcore D&D players I've met seem to want the story and their characters to move forward, so rewards don't have to be perpendicular to the goals of role-play and immersion. And if you manage to get that full immersion high, yes, the other rewards will still do their thing, and you'll get your full experience. So, no need to get rid of the 'training wheels' - just speed up with the stability they offer you!

[@jshud3]

In working through the designing of our RPG game, our motto has been, "let giddy be our guide"... if a mechanic makes use chuckle, laugh, get filled with giddiness because it feels really fun for players, we keep going with it.