One of the things I've been mulling over about effects like "tired" or "injured" is whether they should have a binary impact, rather than a numeric penalty.
I've always disliked the strictly-defined effects that crept into RPGs (including late 1e AD&D and subsequent editions. Stuff like "-2 to this" or "-3 to that" or even worse, "-3 to this, -1 to that". (or the beneficial equivalent, such as feats.) Because of course you have to look up all that crap. To my way of thinking, it's not worth the effort in a game. What I want are rules that make stuff happen, but I don't care about rules that precisely distinguish between different degrees of penalty. As a result, the three-stage effect system I've been talking about in this blog for a couple years went from "all penalties are -1 at the first stage and -2 at the second stage" to "all penalties are -1, but the first stage is brief while the second stage is extended."
But what I'm thinking is doing away even with this explicit rule. Like any situation, if being injured, tired, confused, frightened, or suffering some other effect seems like it would be worth a penalty (or a bonus,) it is. GM's decision. But the only guaranteed effect would be to prevent or allow certain actions, or to trigger various events. Thus, an injured hand can't be used until the injury is seen to, while a very injured hand can't be used until healed; an injured leg forces the victim to hop (treat as max encumbrance;) an eye injury blinds, a stunning blow prevents actions and movement.
You are starting to wander into the storygame side of things. Not that it is a bad thing, really. One or two word 'tags' or 'aspects' that affect things on a vague interpretive level rather then a concrete mechanical modifier.
ReplyDeleteThe closest to what you are talking about, that I've seen, is probably the Fate system used for the Dresden Files RPG. It has Aspects that are a one or two word descriptive phrase (occasionally more) that can either be good or bad, depending on the situation. Either PC or DM can trigger it good or bad with appropriate maneuvers to get a bonus or penalty. So someone with a -Injured Hand- aspect might have the DM invoke a penalty when trying to do something with that hand.
Not entirely. I do understand the concept, since I was on The Forge for a couple years. But that idea has been around for a long time, way before storygames existed, and it isn't inherently storygame-ish. Usually, it gets labeled "freeform", but that's not quite accurate.
DeleteAlso, I'm not really talking about things like "injured hand" having both bonuses and penalties. I'm saying that the bonuses and penalties should only be incidental and not formalized, so that the focus is on in-world logic (you can't pick that up because your hand is injured; you can't dodge because you are asleep.)
DeleteMaybe I am off-topic (and I apologize), but what is your opinion about the advantage/disadvantage mechanic introduced in the soon-to-be-5th edition: make two rolls and pick the better/worse ?
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's too off topic, but since I'm not involved in the D&D Next playtest, I only know what I pick up from blog discussions. At first sight, it doesn't look bad, and might even be good, since it would discourage thinking in terms of plusses and minuses. I used something like that in an old crude design for one of the Game Chefs.
DeleteThe big question is: do more advantages mean more rolls/more dice to roll? If yes, we're back in the same trap.
Currently the way they have it is that you can only have advantage or disadvantage. There is no such thing as double advantage. I rather like the mechanic, as it keeps the set of possible outcomes the same, which just skewing one way or the other (thus fighting agains numerical inflation and numerical illusionism).
DeleteTwo dice, take highest (or lowest) of course predates D&D Next. I first saw it in Philotomy's musings for large weapon damage.
http://untimately.blogspot.com/2011/12/2dth.html
In Flashing Blades, hit locations were rolled on 2d20, with the result that came closest to the location the character was aiming at being the actual result. Not exactly the same, but the basic idea has been around for a long time.
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