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How can mechanics capture the feel of a genre (like sci-fi)?


zslane

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My thoughts on capturing a generic sci-fi feel with game mechanics...

 

First lets cut out gear, vehicles, weapons and equipment and the access to them from the core discussion, as they are very setting specific and is very different from Star Wars, to Star Trek, to Traveller, to Cyberpunk.

Second, we also need to cut out powers and special abilities as they are also very setting specific, the Force, Psionics, neural implants, cyber limbs etc... are all "sci-fi" but not in every sci-fi game. 

 

So what are we left with? Skills.

 

I personally feel that skills and how they are used is the best way to capture a sci-fi feel to a game. Skills should be the main focus of characters in a sci-fi game. I would use almost all of the detailed rules for skills from the Ultimate Skills book, and possibly breakdown the skills into even more specific components. (An aside: One of the big things I miss in 6th Ed. is all the subcategories in the System Operations skill. I feel they should never have taken those out. I still use the lists from 5th Ed when running campaigns in 6th Ed and I think everyone should use them when running a sci-fi campaign). 

 

As technology gets more advanced specialisation is more and more necessary. Even in semi-realistic modern games just having Computer Programming isn't detailed enough. Just because a character can program in C++, doesn't mean they could reprogram a computer running Ruby, Python, Java, etc... Knowing "Security Systems" shouldn't be enough to do everything, it should be broken down into more specific types of skills (the Ultimate Skill gives details on this type of breakdown for lots of the normal "catch-all skills".) And like I mentioned above a character shouldn't just have "System Operations" and be able to run the life support, engines and gravity generators on a ship, each should be its own specialised skill. 

 

This type of attention to detail, especially involving technical skills, knowledge, science & professional skills really can add the "sci-fi" feel to a game. Besides, if it is a Heroic level game, characters won't be spending points of weapons and gear, so they have to spend their XP on something, and skills are the way to go. 

 

 

 

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Mechanics can capture the feeling of a genre in widely varying ways. Take the Jenga mechanic in Dread. That works very well to evoke a feeling of dread in the players.

 

The James Bond 007 RPG provides a classic example with its chase mechanic that's based on bidding and risk/reward. That alone goes a long way to evoking the feel of the movies.

 

Savage Worlds' Dramatic Task mechanic is also great at evoking that feeling you get when your favorite fictional character is trying to defuse a time bomb, or take on a similar time-limited, high-stakes task.

 

Or, take Lasers & Feelings' approach to Star Trek style sci-fi vs. FASA Star Trek's take (including the role-playing space combat system) vs. Far Trek's Talents. They all work well, depending on what it is you're looking to emphasize most about the source material, yet each takes a very different approach.

 

In other words, the ways in which mechanics can be used to evoke the feel of a given body of source material seem to be nearly limitless.

 

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On 8/4/2018 at 7:43 PM, zslane said:

When I look at the Hero System mechanics, there are only a few that in and of themselves really help capture the feel of the superhero genre. Knockback and the non-lethality of Normal damage come immediately to mind. By putting those aside, you turn Champions into the basis for other genres. But the game mechanics can start to have a samey/generic feel to them, as you go from genre to genre, precisely because you're using a common core system for them all.

 

So how can RPG game mechanics capture the feel of, say, the science fiction genre? The most obvious way to deliver the feel of a genre is through the setting, and then through the flavor text attached to actions, abilities, and gear. But the former has nothing to do with mechanics, and the latter are just fancy labels that can be swapped out for others, which make them mechanics-independent as well.

 

I began to wonder about this because I saw Starfinder and began to ponder how it could feel distinctly like science fiction through its game mechanics, rather than through its campaign setting(s). I mean, I presume they are just the Pathfinder mechanics with the flavor text changed and less attention paid to "divine" abilities. But how does one not walk away from the game feeling like it is just a re-skinned fantasy RPG? Is it all up to the setting?

 

Sticking to game mechanics, I'd say that FTL is a fairly sci-fi-centric Hero System mechanic.  Also, Teleportation Gates.  Sure, either can be used in the superhero genre, and teleport gates would work for certain fantasy genre spells / artifacts, but both seem more prevalent in a sci-fi setting.

 

Mechanics aside, though, I think setting and flavor text play much more of a role in defining a specific genre. 

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GM Joe: Right, but I am interested on how a generic or "house" system can capture the feel of science fiction specifically.

 

mallet mentions detailed skills, but the Skill Roll, as a game mechanic, will merely feel like a Skill Roll no matter what genre is being played. There's nothing genre-immersive about your basic skill roll mechanic, so that doesn't really help here, no matter how finely grained the skills are defined. I think you'd need a whole new skill resolution subsystem that is constructed to feel very science-fiction-y somehow, and but then that's not really generic anymore.

 

I tend to agree with BoloOfEarth when he says that when it comes to generic game systems, most of the feel of the science fiction genre (and perhaps any genres) is conveyed through setting and flavor text, i.e., the way the generic/house mechanics are skinned for the genre. Personally, I find that intrinsic blandness a bit disappointing, but that's probably just the nature of the beast.

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On ‎8‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 6:22 AM, Doc Democracy said:

 

In HERO, this is key, and perhaps the weakness of the system in the market.

 

To shine, HERO needs the GM to do a lot of work behind the scenes.

 

An example of this is the holy symbol effect.  If the GM ensures all undead creatures are bought with particular physical and psychological complications, then all anyone needs to do is buy the perk, Holy Symbol, to make things work the way people expect.  It does however mean the GM has to think of it, in advance, and build it into the setting. 

 

Doc

 

Perk? You don't need a perk, you just need a symbol.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I need a palindromedary tagline here

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10 hours ago, Lucius said:

 

Perk? You don't need a perk, you just need a symbol.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I need a palindromedary tagline here

 

Depends on the campaign.  If Holy Symbols are as easy to put together as lashing two sticks in a cross, then all you need is a Holy Symbol.  What about the classic brandishing of a Star of David at a vampire?  Does any Holy Symbol work?  Or what about if the symbol needs to be created by someone of faith and blessed?

 

I agree that the system works whether or not you require the Holy Symbol to be a perk or just a symbol.  I think my last campaign had them as a perk.

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Generic systems, to the extent they try to lend a particular feel to a given genre through mechanics, tend to rely on being toolkits. Being able to grab optional mechanics and bring them into a campaign is enormously helpful.

 

For example, when it comes to horror roleplaying, GURPS has the Fright Check and BRP has the Sanity system. In fact, BRP has many, many optional rules (known as Spot Rules) that can be invoked to give a particular campaign its own feel.

 

GURPS takes a different tact. In that system, just about everything other than the basic character stats and 3d6 roll-under is optional. It's a true toolkit. And beyond that, GURPS authors have done quite a lot of work over the years to explain how the system can be used to evoke the feel of a given genre (or sub-genre).

 

HERO, of course, has some optional rules, some Toolkitting notes on how the system could be used in different ways, and the APGs as primary sources for how to use the system to achieve different ends. There are also some relevant bits in the genre books, but that varies a lot by edition. In 4e, for example, the Hipshot maneuver was in Western HERO and in Dark Champions, not in the main rulesbook like it was in later editions. 5e leaned more heavily on the Ultimate books (including Ultimate Skill) to show how to use the system in different ways.

 

Discussions about Savage Worlds, Fate, and the other modern systems see similar questions regularly popping up about how to achieve a particular effect with the system.

 

How successful any of these efforts are is often in the eye of the beholder, of course.

 

And the feeling seems nearly universal that any given game still feels fundamentally the same no matter how many optional rules or rules shadings are put into use. And it's true, because if the fundamental rules change, then you're not playing the same game any more. You've gone so far down the Genric Universal Toolkit path that you've wrapped back around to every game having its own learning curve.

 

The simpler game systems, such as TinyD6 (which is a house system used, so far, for fantasy (Tiny Dungeons), space (Tiny Frontiers), post-apoc (Tiny Wastelands), and supers (Tiny Supers)), have a lot less room to vary by genre. About all they can do, mechanically, is add some relevant archetypes and support them with the appropriate traits. The customer base doesn't want any more new rules than absolutely necessary. (I'm curious to see how TinyD6 will handle supers; I backed the Kickstarter but the book is in the pipeline).

 

I have more than 100 game systems on my shelves (physical and virtual), and where I run across a nice mechanic I keep it in mind for the times when a system I'm using needs a mechanic to support a particular feel. It's often tricky to do this, but every once in a while it'll work great.

 

That's where I intended to go with my posts upthread: figure out the effect you want to achieve, look at how it's been done before, and see if any of that is adaptable to the system in question. If not, use what you've learned to come up with a new way to do it, if possible. But if the system just doesn't bend that way, then perhaps a different system is best for the campaign in question.

 

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Back around 2001 or 2002, I stumbled across a horror rpg somewhere on the internet.  I should have saved it at the time, but I didn't (and that computer crashed anyway, so that's that).  It had some brilliant mechanics that perfectly represented the horror genre.  Or at least I thought they were brilliant at the time.  I've looked for that rpg several times since then, without success.  I think it was just on somebody's website, a home-brew system.

 

As I recall, each player selected a certain archetype.  Jock, cheerleader, nerd, etc.  And every time you did something genre-appropriate, like going outside to see what that noise is, or going in the basement alone, or sneaking off in the woods to have sex, you were tempting fate and you would draw the monster closer to you.  Your actions would make it more likely that you would be attacked.  But every time you did it successfully, you built up "luck points" or something like that, and you could then use those to help get away from the monster when it attacked.  So doing dumb things that were in genre could help you escape a close call with the monster later.  Basically by surviving, you were further increasing the odds that you were the "final person", and thus the star of the film.  The final surviving person then got like a power boost or something -- like the monster's invulnerability would turn off when there was only one person left, or the car would finally start and you could escape.

 

I read through the system one time at like 3 in the morning, and thought it was awesome.  Then a couple days later I couldn't find it again.  It seemed like it would play almost like a board game where you collected tokens and got "get out of jail free" cards rather a true roleplaying game.  Maybe I dreamed the whole thing, who knows.  But it's an example of a game that was designed to do only one thing.  There are no rules for martial arts, or seduction, or doing science stuff, or bluffing your way past a guard.  Your characters won't be doing any of that.  They're running from a supernatural killer, and that's the only thing the game has mechanics for.

 

If I was looking to design a sci-fi rpg, I'd decide exactly what type of science fiction I was looking to emulate.  2001: A Space Odyssey will play very differently from Starship Troopers, which will itself play differently from Star Wars.  While you could say they're all science fiction, they really don't have all that much to do with one another.  They're very different films and getting the right "feel" will require very different approaches.

 

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For instance, if I were to design a Star Wars rpg, I'd focus my rules on the following areas:

 

--Starfighter vs starfighter combat, where the PC is expected to be the pilot or gunner

 

--Smaller ships evading or escaping much larger ships

 

--Daring acrobatic ship maneuvers through dangerous areas, like an asteroid field or the inside of a giant starbase

 

--Personal combat between a hero and a group of mooks

 

--Personal combat between a hero and a giant monster or a powerful single opponent (fallen Jedi, bounty hunter, etc)

 

--Heroic actions like swinging across a chasm, or moving your tiny ship into attack position against a Star Destroyer

 

--Spiritual struggles against temptation

 

 

 

Those are the things that make Star Wars, Star Wars.  It doesn't matter at all how well a Star Destroyer matches up to a Rebel Cruiser.  The characters aren't going to be interacting with the battle on that scale.  These are narrative concerns that the GM determines.  The rebel fleet either has enough ships for the battle or they don't.  You're not going to be playing Crewman Joe, who is working to repair Turbolaser #16.  You're going to be the guy piloting his own ship.  It isn't important how many points of damage a Proton Torpedo does against the Death Star -- it either hits the surface and does nothing, or it goes down the pipe and blows up the whole thing.

 

I'd give bonuses for heroic actions, but not stupid actions.  Han Solo surprises a group of stormtroopers and chases them down a hallway.  Then they realize "hey it's just one guy, let's turn around and blast him".  While Han is chasing them, he should have a bonus so that it makes sense in game for him to chase.  But when they turn around, then it would be suicidal for Han to stay and fight.  He can only defeat a large group of stormtroopers when he's being heroic.  Likewise a Jedi should be able to take on a squad of stormtroopers, but he shouldn't charge a whole army (that's my own preference against silly prequel superhero Jedi).

 

 

So (I guess I might as well do this) let's say that each character has 3 core stats.  You've got Grit, Heroism, and Spirit.  Grit is for everyday action stuff, like fixing your starship, or shooting a blaster.  Heroism is for acts of death defying bravery, where you throw caution to the wind and do something awesome.  Spirit is for using the Force, or overcoming a deep personal challenge.  It isn't as commonly used as the others, but in some ways it's the most important part of the story.  It's when the soft, inspirational music swells and you know the character is about to make a stand.  We'll go with a "roll successes" model, and say you roll 1D6 for each stat point.  On a 4+, you succeed.  You also roll any applicable dice for skills.  Then you can spend a Force point to give yourself an automatic success on any task, but you only regain those when you use your Spirit to overcome a challenge (or you complete the story arc).  When you're using Heroism, you get two successes for every 4+, but you can only use it when doing something heroic.

 

Note: I never played the West End Games Star Wars, I know they have a D6 system where you look for successes, but I have no idea if this is close or not.  I'm more stealing from White Wolf than anything else.

 

 

We'll say that in the first film, our characters have the following stats:

 

Han

Grit 4, Heroism 3, Spirit 2

--Skills: Smuggling 2, Blaster 2, Dodging 2, Pilot 3, Technician 1 (his ship's always broke)

--1 Force point

--Perk: Owns starship

 

Luke

Grit 3, Heroism 4, Spirit 2  (Luke will grow in Spirit later, in the first movie he's still way too raw)

--Skills:  Blaster 1, Dodging 2, Athletics 1, Pilot 3

--3 Force points

--Perk: Force sensitive

 

Stormtrooper

Grit 2, Heroism 0, Spirit 0

--Skills:  Blaster 1, Profession 1

 

Dozen Stormtroopers

Grit 4, Heroism 0, Spirit 0

--Skills:  Blaster 2, Profession 2

 

So if a Stormtrooper shoots at Han, it rolls 3D6 (two for its Grit, one for its Blaster skill).  Han rolls to dodge, rolling his Grit (because it's just a basic action scenario) plus his Dodge.  So 6D6.  He needs to equal or exceed the Stormtrooper's successes to not get shot.  He'll probably do that, so Han is probably safe if he's only facing two or three Stormtroopers.  However, if Han is facing a Dozen Stormtroopers, then Han is in real trouble unless he's doing something "heroic", because each of those successes will count as two.  He's got to be brave, but not stupid.  And yes, if the situation calls for it, Han can heroically run away.

 

Luke, being the more idealistic type, is better at blind heroism than Han.  He goes out of his way to act heroically, from trying to rescue the princess to making the final assault on the Death Star.  Han is better at the day to day aspects of life, hence his higher Grit score.  As he gains in ability, Han will become a more heroic figure.  Luke will become more Spiritual, allowing him to access higher level Force abilities.

 

--

 

There, that's a quick and dirty example of how a game system can be aimed towards covering the important parts of a particular genre.  You could try and hammer a generic system into doing the same thing, but it would be a whole lot of work.  Most of the Hero System isn't needed to properly simulate Star Wars.  It isn't important how many meters Luke's Force abilities extend.  "Sorry, Darth Vader's starship is a little too far away for your Mind Scan to reach, you will have to move closer."  That's not genre appropriate.  You gotta focus on what is important.

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A lot of the ideas presented are very interesting. And naturally, they tend to be very campaign-specific, which reinforces where my thinking is on this, which is that in order for a generic or house system to convey the feel of a genre you need to add genre/campaign-specific mechanics to it. Like the Sanity mechanics to BRP. Or the Knockback and Presence Attack mechanics to the Hero System. Or the Humanity and Hunger mechanics to the Storyteller system.

 

Without mechanics explicitly designed to convey specific genre tropes, a generic system will only ever feel like a generic system thinly skinned for the genre in question.

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3 hours ago, massey said:

Back around 2001 or 2002, I stumbled across a horror rpg somewhere on the internet.  I should have saved it at the time, but I didn't (and that computer crashed anyway, so that's that).  It had some brilliant mechanics that perfectly represented the horror genre.  Or at least I thought they were brilliant at the time.  I've looked for that rpg several times since then, without success.  I think it was just on somebody's website, a home-brew system.

 

 

If you have some specific ideas of what to search for, you might try the Wayback Machine

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3 hours ago, zslane said:

Without mechanics explicitly designed to convey specific genre tropes, a generic system will only ever feel like a generic system thinly skinned for the genre in question.

 

At first blush, I'd say that's about right. A generic system needs optional mechanics in order to best suit it to a given campaign purpose. If it just has a set of mechanics that is used for everything, then, mechanically-speaking, it'll always feel the same regardless of the campaign.

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Luckily, Star Wars D6 wasn't derived from a previous fantasy RPG that had Mana Points and Evil Points, two mechanics that could easily fall prey to being generic in nature and simply reskinned for the genre/setting of a particular product line. I think that's a problem in general any time you try to turn Some Points into a formal mechanic (as opposed to the currency used in building characters, for instance); it is inherently bland.

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20 hours ago, massey said:

Back around 2001 or 2002, I stumbled across a horror rpg somewhere on the internet.  I should have saved it at the time, but I didn't (and that computer crashed anyway, so that's that).  It had some brilliant mechanics that perfectly represented the horror genre.  Or at least I thought they were brilliant at the time.  I've looked for that rpg several times since then, without success.  I think it was just on somebody's website, a home-brew system.

 

As I recall, each player selected a certain archetype.  Jock, cheerleader, nerd, etc.  And every time you did something genre-appropriate, like going outside to see what that noise is, or going in the basement alone, or sneaking off in the woods to have sex, you were tempting fate and you would draw the monster closer to you.  Your actions would make it more likely that you would be attacked.  But every time you did it successfully, you built up "luck points" or something like that, and you could then use those to help get away from the monster when it attacked.  So doing dumb things that were in genre could help you escape a close call with the monster later.  Basically by surviving, you were further increasing the odds that you were the "final person", and thus the star of the film.  The final surviving person then got like a power boost or something -- like the monster's invulnerability would turn off when there was only one person left, or the car would finally start and you could escape

 

I thought this sounded like a game I had seen recently.  Perhaps convergent design or homebrew evolved to a bit more than that...

 

http://crucifictiongames.com/games_hr.htm 

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