Quick and dirty hack. Very lo-fi.
Four stats basically corresponding to physical, mental, social, Weird. No list of basic moves, just roll what seems to fit. Three points to hit: good, cheap, fast. A 6- gets you one, 7-9 is two, 10+ is all three.
Good means you get the job done fully. The search is thorough and gets all the evidence. Not a single one of those scum-suckers will make it home. This engine is fixed, and will not break again unless you break it.
Cheap is obviously cost. You had to bribe the cop to get past the tape and into the office, that’s money you won’t see again. Those thugs are down, but they left you something to remember them by. Spare parts? Yep, used all of them.
Fast is narrative, but also an MC cue. It says the player retains the initiative. Sort of like insurance against a MC move. You’re in and out of the office before the cop comes back with his cup of tea, now what? You blaze through the goons – what’s next? Hyperdrive is back online, punch it!
In this hack you don’t fail because of a bad roll, you fail because you made the choice to not pay the cost.
What say you?
I like this a lot. I love systems that have singular mechanics, and this is nice. Could be a drop in replacement in World of Dungeons.
I’d add Clean to your list: you exit without complications, they don’t take revenge, you didn’t leave incriminating evidence, the thing you left unguarded wasn’t fucked with, they aren’t overinvested in you.
Mo Jave that feels like “cheap” to me in those circumstances.
Brilliant!
I like the way you re-otherkind-diced AW.
It’s what I have in mind for the Dark City game. I totally want it to be fail forward/ success at a cost, but I don’t want to feel like I’m doing a half-arsed job of copying other moves that other people have written better. Also, I have the fear that my own list of moves might include subtle differences that get forgotten or overlooked in the heat of play and if that’s the case, why bother to start with?
Success is the default here, but depending on your roll, it could variously cost you time and the fictional initiative, it could cost you in Harm or Debt or a Bond or whatever you have, or it could just be a weak success, incomplete or lacking in some way. Definite progress, but maybe not the complete enchilada.
I would phrase it lime this:
When you face an obstacle or risk towards fulfilling your goal, roll 2d6+Stat. On a 10+, all. On a 7-9, two. On a miss, only one. Ask the MC what each one means before choosing, if you want; she’ll answer truthfully.
* You get your goal fullfilled, to the best of your capacity within the situation.
* You don’t pay any price or suffer the consequences.
* You don’t loose the initiative (so the MC cannot make a hard move)
Nice, but I tend to feel it’s too generous. Getting all three is, in my experience, vanishingly rare. Maybe 10+ gives 2, 7-9 gives 1 and 6- the MC throws in something totally off the wall. The MC moves are important to the story, too, and you need to leave room for them. If players are keen to minimise risk they need to go for the big plusses – with +4 a 6 or less is pretty unlikely. Maybe focus on giving plenty of options to get plusses – gear, assists, relationships…
You can also get it not that crunchy, or use another dice&scales.
Imagine: 2d12. 19+, 13-18, 12 or less.
Or even: 2d20. 20 or less, miss. 21 to 30, mixed. 31 or more, complete.
Then you can play a LOT more with bonuses.
Not that crunchy: stats are -1, 0 or +1, +1 if situation demands it, otjerwise forget bonuses altogether.
Or you can get rid of dice rolls altogether: chose one if humanly possible, two if you have a specialty with it; three only if there is no risk at all of failing.
I feel like just spouting off any old ideas about dice mechanics is counter productive.
I was planning to have stats at -1, 0, +1,+2 in any order, but you’re right, that does push the odds away from 6 -. In another game, no worries. In this one, even a 6 – can be a success, just a costly one.
I was also considering -1, 0, 0, +1 and add 1. I think that would probably return more 7-9s, at least.
As for the +4, I’ve got to say that’s not something that’ll be within the scope of the game barring temporary lunacy. It could happen, but it’s not really something I need to consider right now. I’m also not inclined to diverge from the good old 2d6, although diceless sounds like it could have legs.
Aaron Griffin as described, yes. I was saying it should be a separate thing. Cheap is you don’t need to use resources or find resources, material or immaterial. Clean is about discovery consequence and aftermath. Fictional investment and player atrracttion and aversion to them (which is what this kind of mechanic is about) is very different between these categories, so should be separate.
Mo Jave re: Clean
It’s possible, but it does break a principle of the design. I think I would manage it, if relevant, by offering it in line with the fiction. Fast deserves another word – it’s not just a metagame move that tells the MC to hold off, it’s fictional too. It could be the difference between thirty minutes of well planned research and wasting an afternoon chasing dead ends. It’s being done before the night watchman comes back around, or finding some way to deal with an incorruptible octogenarian. I think it really comes down to, “tell them the possible consequences and ask.”
Back to Clean. You could use it in a game where heists and crimes are a big part of the story, where doing the job is only worth it if you can get away with it. Being limited to a best outcome being three choices out of four would likely add to an atmosphere of oppression, never enough, always a problem. I view this as a feature.
“cheap and clean” could be the option
I like the project management triangle a lot, but I would definitely say that you get two on a success, not all three. Nobody really gets exactly what they want quickly and for cheap.
Noah Tucker empowered competent protagonists might, but I get you. Actually, make it zero/ one/ two, and add one in a specific skill zone as a character move, and bang. Experts can shine.
Re: Clean
I really like having “future repercussions” as one of the potential drawbacks for an action, both as a player and as a GM, and it can be applied to a lot of situations. You don’t get caught, but you leave obvious signs of intrusion. Someone gets away and will come looking for revenge. The engine works, but it’s only a matter of time before it breaks down again. I think that’s distinct enough from the other potential problems to warrant its own option.
There’s some really solid thinking going on here. I dig it.
Can I just say you guys are awesome? Thank you for taking my lazy idea and running with it. Also, shameless self-plug, this is the game idea I had in mind:
https://plus.google.com/102203809325421269433/posts/innKMZhVbmY
Sebastian Baker exactly!
Toby Sennett I agree it’s a feature, but I admit that I find it funny/odd that you’re choosing a process that doesn’t feature scarcity while hacking a game that centrally does. What conversation does your hack aim to center on?
Why not: 6- none/7-9 one/10-11 two/12+ three?
Sergio Maximo Jr. this hack is still very early, and doesn’t explicitly include advancement. I want to hew close to the core mechanic which means 12+ results would count as advanced moves, and therefore it’s currently out of scope. I also don’t have any explicit rules for Debts or Bonds or Harm at this point, so don’t feel I’m singling that out. It’s just not ready (yet).
Mo Jave a fair question. Basically because I am a big fan of AW, I love the stripped down nature of the ruleset and I have a hope that what I can do with this is enough to make a game both challenging and interesting. I feel this hack gives you enough to go on to create answers on the theme of, “play to find out what happens”.
WRT the fictional source (Dark City) it’s got some questions:
What’s my place in this world?
What really came before, and does it matter to me now?
What happens next for me, and everyone else?
I’m far, far less concerned with a simulation style game than a narrative game that follows some badass characters finding out answers to those questions. I think this hack works towards that. Also it’s super light, which facilitates the kind of pick up and play one-shots I want to start doing next year.
Toby Sennett I hear you. I was just suggesting expanding the default result scale, not necessarily regarding advancement or advanced moves. That would highlight how relevant a +1 or above stat is. You see, as you’re already breaking paradigms here I thought it wouldn’t hurt to take it one step further.
Anyway, it all sounds really cool and I’ll follow it’s development with interest
I like the idea of the player never (or only very rarely) getting to choose all the options, whether by adding Clean as a fourth or making the scale 0/1/2 with only specialization or an exceptionally good roll getting all 3 options. It seems like a nice balance to how the players succeed even on a 6-, if they have complications even on a 10+.
Toby Sennett You mention that adding a fourth option would “break a principle of the design.” Can you explain what you mean by that? Not disagreeing, just curious.
Sebastian Baker Fast, cheap, good. On an average roll, you get two. Therefore…and so on as discussed above.
If I can add my opinion on the matter of “clean”, I think having a fourth option, even if it’s not clean, would be beneficial. See, no matter what you do, you succeed, but even when you’re on top of things, there are consequences. The GM using this system is giving up hard moves based on failures, and leaving everything to the PC’s choices and the lore. This works best when there’s always something to use. Specifically with four choices, even on a complete success, the players will have to decide what is most important to their particular situation. Do you need to get in an out without being caught? Are you careful to not leave any trace of your infiltration? How thorough were you exactly? What did you have to sacrifice to get here?
Players will probably lean towards cost unless they can’t think of an option. The important part of this setup seems to be that you always succeed, but even when you succeed, there is an implication that you may have left something out. Ultimately, it’s your design, so do with it as you like.
Super cool. Really like this. This feels like Cthulhu Dark had a three way with FAE and ApocWorld.
Very interesting idea.
I may have missed it, but how does combat work in this system?
Matt Razincka It doesn’t seem to have a special mechanic for combat, so my guess would be that you say “I beat that person up” and roll+stat, probably the one for physical stuff, and choose your options, just like doing everything else.
Sebastian Baker pretty much.
Generally, it’s +Grit, with the details and outcomes very fiction first. Say you’re a boxer and you want to take out a gang of gangsters who have guns. You’ll need to establish how it’s even possible to overcome their advantages in numbers and weapons before you can make a “roll Grit for mans fall down” check. And even then, given the situation, it would seem that any options you don’t take are going to hit you hard.
Alright! I now have two minds.
The simple one first: cut back your outcomes (cheap/ fast/ good). A miss is bad, 7-9 buys you one outcome, 10+ buys you two.
If you take a character move, something that means X is your specialist subject, maybe you get all three on a 12+ result. We can even double down there and have that be expert and then there’s a master level that just adds one outcome period – you are at the pinnacle of your art and you simply cannot fail at that particular action. It may come at a cost, but the dice alone cannot deny you.
The second idea, and this is coming kinda from Lasers and Feelings, Rockerboys and Vending Machines, Cruel and Unusual.
Add a fourth outcome which is specific and dependant on the setting. Doing some crime, maybe that’s Clean. Doing some detective work, maybe that’s Legal. Maybe it’s Star Trek, and your fourth outcome is Ethical.
I think this idea is exciting and can work. I also think coming up with an ideal fourth outcome that will work consistently throughout a game, even if you pick it directly for that game, could be a real struggle. There are problems in Star Trek that don’t revolve around ethics. There are situations in crime games where legality isn’t a factor.
What then? Do we hold the fourth outcome in reserve like a difficulty modifier? “Yeah, you can try doing that thing, but Legal is now on the table because you’re still on parole.” I’m not sure that’s the direction I want to go in.
I’m not saying the fourth outcome is a bad idea, I think it can add an interesting asymmetry to the mechanics and it’s totally going to force players to consider the outcomes before committing to dice. It would really have to be something central to the theme of the game and the characters being played. Vampires – Blood, a MotW or Buffylike urban fantasy game could have Corruption. It’s got to be said, this was a framework I was intending to use for Dark City, the game after the movie, and I’m not sure what I can really pull in as a strong fourth outcome. Suggestions welcome!
Thoughts on this: I like the 6- being Bad Stuff happens. But I think the 7-9 should be “choose: you do it +1 outcome”. And the 10-11 should be “you do it + 2 outcomes.” I think a 12+ should be special (“you do it + 3 outcomes”) without a special upgrade
The special upgrades should probably just be specific types of action getting +1 outcome, or narrative armor against consequences of a certain type.
Also: what about resisting things happening to the PC? Like.. if they resist, and they roll, but get a 7, it doesn’t matter what they choose; it’s about avoiding the Bad Stuff narrated by the MC. So picking fast or good or cheap falls apart a little there (for me at least), and I think a resist mechanic would be an improvement
I think the idea is more that you don’t need to roll most of the time, only when you want to attempt to do something specific that might be opposed.
Now let’s say that’s not the case and someone’s got a gun in your face or an ogre is about to club you to death. You ask the player what they plan to do about that. If they try to talk their way out of it, all three could apply. Ogres aren’t known to be particularly forgiving, so you might just say they you’re not talking your way out of this. In that case, fast would pertain to movement, good could pertain to positioning, and cheap could pertain to forgetting something out doing something in the process. It works.
Well there are other advantages to having separate ways to handle avoiding things done vs doing things. For one, you can engage other mechanics. However, I can see why this might have no place here since the idea is to be super simple though
Gregory Daily rolls should be infrequent. I’m not saying one roll is one scene, period, but it shouldn’t really be far off. In this system the mechanic is more of a hinge than a selection of…different buildy parts.
Anyway, it’s something to keep in mind if you want to do simpler than Simple World. Thanks for your feedback, everyone!