So I had this idea kicking around for a while, centered on "what happens if an rpg prioritizes social approaches over combat"? Think empathy and negotiation, "romantic fantasy" instead of grimdark.
After kicking it around a little, it evolved into an entire system based on the hero's approach to a situation. Do you approach combat by fighting or by fleeing? A social encounter by being aggressive or empathetic?
It's strongly narrative, with a focus on the player as author, and intended to create story but also to have a strong framework (largely inspired by Trollbabes' rerolls) to tell you when you lose, haha. I'm happy with how it plays, at least for myself.
Would love any feedback/ideas/suggestions, or playtests, even if it's just a couple of rolls to see how it handles.
https://exposit.github.io/katamoiran/2017/05/14/romantic-fantasy/
It's your choice; you can pick what you want, as long as it's the starting character! The benefit to going to one side or the other is that you're more likely to succeed with a bigger range on that approach.
ReplyDeleteSo if you want your hero to be more likely to succeed when he's taking a bold approach to exploring, you'd put the long-term number high or if you want him to be more successful with a cautious approach, you'd put it low, so you increase your chances to roll over the number.
And the number slides in play, so if you're successful at a bold exploration roll, you're more likely to be successful with that approach next time -- but if you need to be cautious (say, sneaky, or perceptive) your hero is at a greater disadvantage.
With, say, a 9 in Explore, when you choose a Bold approach for your hero, he has a 90 percent chance of success, but he's very unlikely to succeed at the cautious approach, at least until failed rolls start moving that slider down. Which could be interesting, if you wanted to model someone who is very direct and brash but who must learn caution to achieve his goals.
Ah, right. It wasn't entirely clear that actually choosing the numbers was intended, since it's not a usual thing with RPG.
ReplyDeleteI'll look at it and see if I can clarify that a bit!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, when I was writing Heirs I was like, "I'm going to write something more traditional with stats and everything" and I ended up essentially encoding the author stance in, basically moving as far from traditional "my character" play as I know how.
I think that's because the distinction has fascinated me for a while, since I finally figured out that that's why I've never fit into my group games.