Small but important details

The other day I played my first game of True20. It was a nice little game which I thoroughly enjoyed for many reasons. One was my little Adept who could make small light-shapes to illuminate his surroundings, but that's not the reason for this post.

It is the format of the book. We all had the True20 Pocket Players guide, which is a conviniently sized soft-cover. Even though we all played the game for the first time, looking up rules and finding answers was a breeze (with one exception.. the damage system took some readings to get our head around, but apart from that).

This made the game flow fairly quickly for a new game, and I (since I also had a copy of the rules) tried to assist the GM while he was running the game.

Coming from games like DnD, WoD and similar, I was impressed by how much it helped having a well-organized, simple-to-handle book. Sometimes we forget these little details and how they can affect gameplay.

To tie this post into my previous posts about the three-layer model, I would put these aspects as a firm third layer component. It doesn't change the rules one bit, but it does have influence on gameplay (if you as a player choose to use it).

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Layers and D20

This is an attempt to describe the different layers using the D20 System. The reason I chose this is that I can use the information in the SRD, which is open to use. Other possibile systems to analyse in this way would be Fate or D6.

Apart from the core rule, each game system has several individal parts, which all can be analysed in this way. For instance, the magic system in the D20 System can be considered a system in itself, and therefore should be analyzed as a separate part.

The System

As mentioned in the previous post, all actions are measured against how difficult the task is. The solving mechanism is random and linear. This means that extreme results are fairly common (the average roll is just as common as an extreme high or an extreme low).

This means, for instance, that adverse or positive circumstances will affect all participants in a contest the same. If the result-curve is bell-shaped, then a skill increase will have different statistical effects depending on the skill level of the character.

The system measures degree of success. Even though it's not always used, it's possible to calculate not even if someone succeeds or fails, but also how well they succeed (or fail).

Each task has a set level that says how difficult it is. In contests between two characters, this level is dynamic and decided by the opponent. Once again, since all results are linear, adverse or positive circumstances affect all participants equal.

The Engine

This is where we look at the implementations of the relations and behavior described above.

A classic way to get a linear random result is using a single die. We can chose to make a high roll good or a low roll good. This won't affect the statistical outcome, but there is a difference in usability and understanding of the system. Saying that a high roll is good is most often more intuitive.

A good skill gives a better roll. There are different ways to implement this:

• Addition: Skill + roll = result
• Multiplication: Skill * roll = result
• Random addition: SkillRoll+roll = result
• and many others

This choice could be said to be made at the system level, since they affect the basic behaviour of the game. There are two linear methods, addition or multiplication. The most easy and straighforward of this is a straight addition.

Since higher is said to be better, we say that if the result >= Difficulty, the task is a success.

The Game

This is where the rules meet the user. As of now there is basically one important choice to make, and that is what kind of die to use. The above rules are usable no matter what kind of dice we are using. No matter if we are using 1D6 or 1D100, the above rules and descriptions still apply.

The choice of die affects a couple of things though. Ease of use (lower numbers are easier and faster to add up) and granularity (a span of 1-100 gives more detail than 1-6) are the two more important. In this particular case, a D20 is used. This means that each skill-level gives a 5% chance of success. It's a span that gives a fair amount of fine tuning, as well as keeping the number relatively low.

Notes

This was a first attempt att analysing a system with these three levels. As said before, this modell is a work in progress, and it will be more fine tuned and defined as it is used more. This may also mean that the descriptions above could change.

RPG System layers

Just as software systems has different layers (algorithms, implementations, GUI etc) RPG systems could be described in the same way. One rough setup is to describe a system in three layers:

1. The System The relations between and the behavior of artefacts/ entities within the system. Defines the behaviour of the game engine.
   
• Example: All actions are measured against how difficult the task is, and solved with a random element. This difficulty could be either static or dynamic. Extremes should be just as common as regular rolls, so we want a linear curve.
  
2. The Engine The implementation of the game system. This is where we decide on which form an equation in the rules should be written (as an example).
   
• Getting a high result is considered better. We wanted a linear spread, so we want just one die. So, rolling a die and trying to get a high number is where we want to go. Dynamic contests are opposed by a similar mechanic, static contests have a fixed number to beat. The final basic rule is written down as
  
• Roll a die and add how good you are what you are trying to do. If you roll equal to or higher a certain number, you succeed
3. The Game The way these implementations are prestented to the player. Also small details that make the system more intuitive and usable. For instance: Should damage taken be deducted from a certain amount or added up from zero. In the former case you don't want to get to zero points left, in the latter you don't want to reach a certain level.
   
• "How good you are" is called a Skill, or in case of combat: Attack Bonus. Rolling and adding percentiles (1-100) can be time-consuming, but to few steps make the game to "rough" and not nuanced enough. A 20-sided die is chosen since it gives a fair amount of fine-tuning without giving to high numbers to add.
• Damage for each weapon is described in table XX. Damage is added up for each hit and when damage
  

Statement: To make a successful game, all these levels has to be considered.

The above names are just descriptive, and should not be taken as definitions. Also, the borders between those layers are fuzzy at best, and this model is not to be taken literally, but more as a guideline to point out that things happen at different levels within a system.

For instance, a roll-under-system and a roll-over-system could both said to be rooted in the same System (using my own nomenclature), but they use different Engines, that have different psychological and (to some extent) mechanical consequenses. The statistical behaviour of the two, however, remains the same.

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