D&D 5e simplified everything. Its advantage/disadvantage system threw out the nit-picky ideas of flanking, social leverage, or low-light vision. It did away with all of the +1, +2, +3 for this and that, replacing it with a streamlined roll twice mechanic that has made a lot of people happy! But... did it really?
If you've actually played 5e hopefully you realize at this point that the above statement is false to a certain degree. Adv/dis is a great GM tool, as its meant to be, but there are still all sorts of fiddly +1s, +2s, and +5s. Why did the designers continue to put that stuff in if they have such a great replacement?
Unfortunately, I think that as wonderful as adv/dis is, it's actually too simple of a replacement. Its still an interesting mechanic, and its well-integrated into the character design such that it prevents a lot of stacking bonuses. But if the whole game only revolved around adv/dis, characters would be too similar, and the game would get stale very quickly. Instead, D&D makes +1s for interesting things: stats, skill proficiencies, partial cover, shields, and certain spells/abilities. Then, the rest it shoves into the catch-all adv/dis system. This works out really well, actually, as it puts a hard cap on the "stretching" of bonuses.
We can see this same type of simplicity played out in Numenera. Since it uses a static +1/-1 for each of its bonuses, it's easy to step things up and down. However, instead of an elegant solution like adv/dis to cap it, we see a hard cap played out in the form of assets. Otherwise, the same sort of interesting-bonuses-only applies, allowing a talented character turn a level 10 threat into a level 1 (with great effort).
For Hostargo, players roll against a target number. That number goes up with their Potential and down with the Challenge Rating. The GM must think of attributes that increase the challenge rating. These are said aloud and counted on fingers so everyone is aware of exactly what is going on. Potential is simply the character's stat: at least right now. What I'm leaning towards is changing character advantages to increase the action's potential (rather than a mix of other things like it is now). That way, players find and state their bonuses just like the GM does for the challenge rating.
Some people don't like this back-and-forth bartering between player and GM. Indeed it does slow down play at the table. FATE, for example, does away with this style of bartering and only allows an extra boost if players spend the meta-game currency (fate points). But FATE has shown itself to be less than optimal for those looking for a more tactical game. Those tactics, like the ones I'm looking for in Hostargo, rely on players being rewarded for creative thinking. Numenera does this well, and I'm looking to implement that style in Hostargo as well.
Specifically, I have character motivations in the form of Gears. These used to give players luck. Instead, I might count it as a possible source of potential. Other sources of potential could be positioning, knowledge, or leverage. I am unsure at this time that I have a concrete list of interesting bonuses, or a smooth hard cap, but it definitely seems like a more streamlined approach.
This is very interesting - I hadn't thought much about it, and in fact, as a 5e DM, I find myself forgetting to give Adv/Dis much of the time.
ReplyDeleteI never thought about it as a cap though. I wonder, since in Histargo, the bonuses are counted on fingers, maybe a "hand" is the cap (5 bonuses). Maybe you can use some luck or something to "go in with both fists" and have a battle where you can double your bonus cap. On the GM side, a major boss battle might be a "two-fist" battle. Just throwing stuff out there.
Another thing that could be interesting is letting the barter be a "yes/no" where the players get to say "is that really worth a bonus?" or "wait, he doesn't have that on us" then the player goes next and the GM gets to say yes/no to that (following a similar standard). It requires some player/GM trust for the yes/no's, but can establish a standard after a few times through. Some of the keys for the GM is to not make it always predictable (5 bonuses each side every time), encourage the players to "set up" their bonuses with a pre-attack tick or smart reactions, make sure the "quiet" players get their say and try to keep a pretty consistent line of what counts as a bonus.
The two first battle seems interesting as a concept and that it gives me an idea of how much this battle matters. I know that the running joke for Pathfinder was calling it 'mathfinder' due to the list of modifiers applied on rolls. I did feel like 5e improved on this at first but noticed that my GM feel back on modifiers far more than adv/dis.
DeleteI can see the passing of adjudication as interesting but it seems like something that would need to be reinforced in other areas that are typically just the GM. I have yet to play a game that solved this problem, even Numenera didn't seem tactical enough.