DGRPG Design Diary #7: Core Mechanics Review

A quick recap of the core mechanics, with some provisional values.

Task Resolution:

The central task resolution mechanic used to determine success or failure. This can apply to setting or disarming a cunning trap, jumping over an obstacle, climbing a rope, attacking an adversary, intimidating a subordinate, whatever.

d20 + modifiers vs. target number

I'm going to try and keep the range of modifiers pretty tight to avoid undue inflation as characters improve over time.

Modifiers

Attribute modifiers are derived from the PC's Attributes, and use the Attribute most relevant to the task at hand. Such modifiers are kept deliberately low to reduce the emphasis on number-crunching character optimisation by ensuring that even a character with non-optimised Attributes remains playable.

Attribute	3	4-5	6-8	9-12	13-15	16-17	18
Modifier	-3	-2	-1	0	+1	+2	+3

Equipment modifiers are conferred by special items, weapons, etc. An enchanted dagger might grant a +1 modifier to damage inflicted, an enchanted helm might grant a -1 modifier to damage received. Such items are likely to be rare and highly prized.

Situational modifiers are conferred by environmental factors which help or hinder the performance of a task - a PC might enjoy a positive modifier if assisted by companions, given extra time to perform the task, or similarly favourable conditions; correspondingly a PC might suffer a negative modifier while on fire, or in pitch darkness, or hanging by one leg from the ceiling, or likewise distracted. It is entirely possible (and indeed encouraged) to seek advantage by inflicting such negative modifiers upon adversaries.

There is a limit to the number of modifiers that can be applied to a task resolution attempt to keep things from getting silly - three modifiers or a total of +5 in each direction, whichever is lower.

Target Numbers

Target numbers vary based on the difficulty of the task at hand. To succeed at a task the total of d20 + modifiers must exceed the target number. Dice should only be rolled when there is a likelihood of failure having consequences - so hopping over a puddle of water wouldn't require a roll, but leaping a bottomless crevasse (or a puddle of acid) would.

Difficulty	Target	% success
Trivial	1	95%
Easy	5	75%
Standard	10	50%
Taxing	15	25%
Daunting	19	5%

The default target number is 10, which gives a 50-50 chance of success or failure for an individual of average ability. This can vary according to the task - jumping over a 3' gap might be Trivial, a 5' gap might be Easy, a 10' gap Standard, a 15' gap Taxing, and a 20' gap Daunting.

I've also been made aware of a game called Dungeon World which uses a "partial success" mechanic - such that borderline task resolution rolls might succeed, but with a cost or consequence. It's an idea that's intriguing to me, so I'll be researching it further.

DGRPG Design Diary: Back to Basics

It's been a while. I had a brief exploratory sidequest to check out the possibility of some kind of Dungeon Grind computer game, but that didn't pan out because coding is hard. Certainly harder than I anticipated. Making pixel-graphics is fun and I'm not bad at webdesign coding with CSS and HTML and even a bit of the ol' PHP/SQL stuff, so how tricky could it be, right? Suffice to say it turned into a rather brisk lesson in humility. But at least I tried.

So, back to the world of paper-and-pencils.

Part of the reason for the above digression was because I was having some trouble coming up with rules for the DGRPG - I've got a fairly good idea of what I want in terms of feel and texture for the game, but assigning actual numbers to things was challenging, because I kept getting tied up in working out which approach was "better" for everything - flat modifiers vs. dice modifiers, whether task resolution should be d20 + modifier, or d20 + attribute, how these things might affect balance and fairness, which option feels best, and so on and so forth. And looming on the horizon was the idea that I'd have to make this kind of decision for everything the rules might have to cover, because I'd been mentally modelling DGRPG on later editions of D&D, which tend to have rules for everything - if you want to do something there's probably a rule to cover it. Part of this likely stems from the attempt to make the d20 system a "universal" system (rather than just sticking to the Heroic Fantasy genre of previous editions), while the rest is probably because more rules means being able to sell more rulebooks detailing and explaining those rules.

Whatever the reason, that's really not what I'm aiming for. Ideally I'd like to get all the rules needed to play DGRPG into one booklet, maybe 32 pages or so tops. Character generation, a bit of setting information, some spells, equipment, task resolution, combat system, and that's about it. Something nice and lightweight.

Then I took a closer look at this OSR thing I've seen mentioned here and there online in RPG communities, read a few blogs, downloaded a few articles, and things are starting to click. The Quick Primer for OSR Gaming has been pretty informative, and meshes pretty well with what I have in mind.

Which is a slightly long-winded way of saying that I've got a clearer idea of where to take things from here, and will thus be able to start putting together an actual workable system, from the ground up.