Lessons Learned #2: The Quickest Resolution

To my great disapointment, Hostargo seemed to drag a bit in my most recent play tests. It seemed like more of my players were having trouble with the main dice mechanic. I have normally chalked up any clunkiness to players being new, the inverse dice mechanic being very unfamiliar, and otherwise just player learning curve. This thought was backed by the fact that some people had no issue with it at all...

But after one of the playtesters, who I know to be an RPG designer himself, found the dice mechanic bumpy at best, I began to seriously question what was going on. His input was extremely helpful, because he was able to point directly to the problem:

In "simpler" mechanics, you have a static roll + variable mods compared to a variable target number. In my system, you have a variable roll + variable mods compared to a variable target number. There's an extra step for the players to keep track of in there that, while small, slows the resolution process just enough to take people out of the fiction and onto their physical character sheet.  Fuck.

So my brainwaves started rolling and one by one thought of at least one comment from previous playtests that pointed to the same thing. No one else has nailed it on the head though, so I was unable to really find a solution to their thoughts. But then I also thought back on the players that had no trouble at all with the system, and a realization hit me. All of those players didn't actually use the system as I had described!

Instead of taking the challenge rating (CR), adding it to their roll, and comparing it to their stat, they instead took the CR, subtracted it from their stat, and then tried to roll under the resulting number. This doesn't exactly take out the extra step described in the problem above, but what it does do is get to the resolution quicker. In the addition system I have used, it takes the player multiple views at their rolls and stats in order to keep everything in their head and finally come up with a result. Using this subtraction method, the numbers flow in an easier step-by-step basis, so that when you finally go to roll, you're down to just a simple comparison. This allows the players to immediately know their resolution result after rolling, which was the whole goal in the first place.

I was so focused on avoiding subtraction that I was deaf to the suggestions and comments of plenty of people that have suggested this before. For that, I'd like to apologize. Once I realized how much faster it is, I've even justified the subtraction in my mind: because higher CRs are bad, it actually feels better to be subtracting it as a bad thing than it does to be adding it to your skill roll.

When it comes right down to it, we've now got a two step process: determine TN, and roll under. In theory, this will be much faster than the previous mechanic and potentially even make more sense to the players. But as of this writing, this is all just theory, and must be put to the test.

I still have the three variables in my equation, but introducing that third variable was one of the whole points of my inverse dice system. It allows me to reduce variance as character skill increases. That flexibility is good for the long run of the game, so I don't think its going anywhere anytime soon. Instead, I'm focusing on making my unique mechanics as smooth and easy to use as possible.

Thank you to all of the great people who have helped me reach this conclusion!

Lessons Learned #1 - Don't Be Too Crafty

Nothing can compare to a good playtest, and nothing can get you a better one than with random people at a con. Luckily, I had some great players, and got a lot of good feedback on the game.

Lesson 1) Don't be too crafty.

In no good RPG do you ever want to railroad the players. However, especially in a convention game, you need to have more-than-obvious plot hooks to keep the game moving forward. While I always aim for more than the standard "go kill the things", you also have to have a minimum level of clarity to speed things along. My issue at the con was that while my story was in depth, with plenty of intrigue and twists for the players to discover, I kept them guessing a bit too much, to the point where they weren't sure where to go next.

Yikes! This slowed down the game considerably as I had to come up with more information to feed them. Nothing stumbles a game like the players feeling like they don't have a clear direction.

The key is to use your time to highlight and elongate the intense moments that the players themselves create. They'll do it - almost with certainty - so you need to plan for your games to run on a very short, small set of scenarios. At the same time, you never know when players will think of ways to skip, avoid, or utterly destroy certain encounters, which means you need to have an array of backup plans.

I think one of the best advice I got from a friend was to take a hard look at the pre-generated characters, and come up with a handful of scenarios where each of them could shine. Then, based on who is playing, who has taken the spotlight already, and the amount of time left for the game, deal out those scenarios as needed as extra bonus scenes. Just don't stray too far from the main plot line, as con games don't have a lot of wiggle room for side quests. It's best if each of these scenes add to the main story like pieces in a puzzle.

That all said, I'm still in love with the scenario I've come up with for "Welcome to Hostargo", and am trying to cut down on some of the fluff in order to stuff more setting-specific goodness into it. Hmm... am I even listening to my own lesson? You bet - I will work towards making all of that extra goodness into character-specific scenes to plug & play as needed. Thanks Mr. Land!

A Major Refactoring

The title might seem bad, but I'm actually very happy. After scrambling like mad last week to get ready for my playtest, I was left feeling like I didn't actually accomplish what I set out to accomplish. But after Friday's pre-alpha game, I'm feeling confident in heading a new direction.

The first thing I got out of the playtest was that the core mechanics are still solid. The dice, the stats, and skills all worked how I intended them to. There were minor discussions about secondary mechanics: expertise, status effects, pockets, and encumbrance, but really more looking at clarification than any major changes.

The second major thing I got out of the playtest is that it's time to dramatically step up the content of the setting itself. Hostargo, while an interesting idea, really isn't fleshed out enough and felt very familiar in terms of a modern cyberpunk world. Now that the focus is shifting off of the mechanics, I need to start pouring more effort into making Hostargo feel unique and awesome - making players want to play in it.

Lastly (at least that I'll be recording here), is that my classes failed to deliver any sort of real addition to the game. Sure, they gave you some expertise and a new ability, but it didn't focus the one thing that this genre is about: roles. What ended up happening, which I kick myself for being so cliche about, is that the Animancer spellcaster was able to overshadow everyone else simply because they had an option for everything. Class, unfortunately, didn't come into play much at all (the Animancer is a "calling", or special ability, not a class).

But this hit me like a truck, probably because I hit my forehead with my palm so hard. Of course. I was so focused last week making everyone cool that I forgot to balance any amount of utility. And just like that we have 8 pretty much brand new classes. From here on out, my design goals for the class/calling pair are thus:

• Class: What your character does.
• Calling: How they go about doing it.

This should have been obvious, but it's always 20/20 in hindsight. Now, I can define very specific roles I want my characters to have in the game: the hacker, the healer, the investigator, etc. And, now I can make the special abilities gained from one's calling directly correlate to each class's purpose. The final goal of this being that anyone can play any combination of class & calling, and they will be a unique and interesting party member.

6 * 8 = 48 combinations

Six is already stretching my limit of categories for special abilities, so that's pretty final. And remember, the calling is aimed at pleasing the player's playstyle, not filling a specific character role. Eight classes feels right, so that different parties of 3-5 people can have wildly different games depending on their party makeup.

Add on top of that that these new classes allow me to completely strip away the necessity to play as SEA agents (you still can of course), and you open up the possibility for 3 additional "group templates"! More gaming styles, more stories, more adventure. I may have another mountain of work ahead of me, but I couldn't be happier to climb that mountain.

Cheers!

Pre-generated Characters

Day 1 of my pre-con prep (yesterday) went poorly, as both my fiance and I were not feeling well. Physical health is a thing.

We did manage a bit of mini-painting as well as updating the Hostargo character sheet. Yay progress!

Day 2 of my pre-con prep (today) went great! I have finished using both the character creation system and item creation system to pump out 6 full characters. 

However, I want the players to have some choice in their character creation, and so I've split things between the two most important decisions: the character's calling and their class.  These are basically the character's special ability and marital training respectively. I want to see what kind of funky combinations there will be, and I think a simple choice like this will help make the characters a bit personalized without taking up too much time (e.g. with item creation...).

I do see right off the bat that certain combinations simply won't be fun (e.g. low stats for certain specialized abilities), but hopefully there aren't too many. I don't think of this as a real problem, since the choices I've made are hard-coded into these two halves, where in the real game the players would have full control over their customization.

Next up is more mini painting (not necessary, but fun) and then working on the adventure I'm going to run (basically tomorrow's project). Finally, Friday the plan is to organize my materials, make sure everything's golden, and then play test! Wish me luck!

Oh - and thank you to everyone that has signed up for Grandcon. It's very inspiring, and much appreciated!