Latest revision as of 12:23, 7 March 2018

Just going to throw some words on the page, and we'll see what sticks.

Tonight, we are discussing the thorny issue of skills, once again.

Overview and History

Once upon a time, we used the standard skill system. That... mostly worked.

Then I said "screw this noise," and made several attempts at fixing it. Expanding the skill list, moving to a PF-style skill system, consolidating the skill list, adding default skills... we did a lot of weirdness to this particular subsystem.

Then I encountered the idea of scaling feats, where the benefits of the feat scaled to something like your BAB. So Cleave gave you a bunch of different benefits, all based on your BAB. And I said... huh, that's kind of like how skills work. And then I found an alternate skill system in which you got discrete abilities at various skill ranks, and I said... huh, that looks kind of like feats.

So my thought process was - what if you switched the concepts of skills and feats?

Of course, many feats in d20 are defunct, because we let martials have nice things. So feats now are primarily about customization of your abilities or expanding into other classes, rather than ... whatever the hell they were for before. They cover generic improvements that anybody might want, and almost class-specific abilities but are useful for multiple classes, so allow some customization.

Which leaves... skills. Skills as feats, to be more precise. But just like how many combat feats got turned into martial powers, so, too, will these "skills-as-feats" be turned into powers. Just for another type of class, one which Trinity has always been sorely lacking in: the skill monkey.

We're going to try to cover all the ground, here. All of it. But we have to do some shit, first, like figure out how some basic subsystems work, and how classes fulfill those roles.

I'm also working on expanding the Expert class list. Right now, we have:

• Thief
• Mediator
• Explorer

I am contemplating adding the following:

• Scholar (for knowledge skills)
• Merchant (for interacting with economy)
• Harvester (for resource gathering skills)
• Noble (for leadership skills)
• Artisan (for crafting skills)
• Less solid, but... reckoner? for computer-y skills? You'll see why in a minute.

There, of course, must be nine. I'm not sure what the ninth is, but maybe it'll come to me.

I'm thinking this whole deal may very well replace the "background skill" stuff, which... nobody seems to really care about? So this will put some limelight on that.

Experts and Minigames

So, here's the deal. There's a ton of shit you can do in an RPG, and all of our classes that are actually written right now do one of two things: kill dudes with swords, or kill dudes with magic (for varying flavors of magic).

We need to represent the rest of the world, and - indeed - the rest of what you can do in a game.

How do we make this shit matter? We turn them into minigames. That term isn't meant to be insulting, because we already have one, and it's called combat.

So the goal here is that for each expert class, there is a minigame that it gives a fuck about. These minigames need to be relatively fast and painless, so that if only one person at the table cares, not everyone else is bored to tears. However, all classes also need abilities that can contribute to an adventuring party, in at least some way.

There should also be abilities for each class that allow them to straight-up ignore their class's specific minigame, so that if a player (or even group) decides they don't give a damn, they aren't obligated to deal with it. Likewise, these minigames need to be accessible to everyone: just because a thief is the sneaky asshole doesn't mean that the mage shouldn't be able to do it, they will just not be awesome at it. Deal with it.

Exploration Redesign: The Percolating

Links!

Abstract Dungeoneering

Schrödinger, Chekhov, Samus

Abstract Dungeon Track

Melan's analysis on dungeon layout

Alexandrian analysis on jacquaying dungeons

Storming the Wizard's Tower

And don't forget to get reacquainted with Journey exploration mechanics; not everything is there, though, and certainly not the bits about hexes having "exploration points" that are reduced as you travel through the hex, which is the important bit (among others, but that's the truly important concept).

First Go: Putting the Pieces Together

Abstract dungeon map, courtesy of Angry GM

Okay, so let's throw some things on the table and see what sticks.

Instead of having the whole dungeon mapped out to the square, instead we use an abstract dungeon map, like the one to the right. This divides the dungeon into zones - discrete areas that are unified, somehow, by theme or area or what-have-you. Connections between zones are just that: hallways, doors, teleporters... the precise mechanism for transit between zones is not really relevant here, I don't think. Because the dungeon is abstract, it can be whatever.

The mechanics of a zone... okay, there's a lot to go through, here. Basically we take from Journey: there's an idea that a zone has an exploration difficulty TN of some kind... no, that's not quite right, either. Hmm.

What is a zone? It's a collection of rooms, areas, and what-not.

...

There needs to be a distinction between "points of interest" and "hidden things," which is something that I'm having a bit of a holdup on right now.

Necessary corollaries to "has hands" are "has eyes" and "has brain" - that is, adventurers are thinking creatures able to perceive their environment. This is a useful observation, probably.

Events are to zones what attacks are to creatures, but instead of choosing which attack to use like a creature, zones randomly generate their events.

But... on the heels of that, events are triggered by a successful exploration roll. So if you hit the room, ... you deal damage to the zone's exploration points. Then the zone reacts with an event chosen randomly from its event list, where the valid events are those whose "EP threshold" is equal to or greater than the zone's remaining EPs.

At certain breakpoints, the difficulty to hit the room increases. Wait, but then... if you had an event that was available at initial EPs and you just didn't hit it, it would be harder to hit that one later... that doesn't make sense.

Maybe some events also have an AC of their own that you have to hit. So like... finding a hidden thing in a zone, not only do you have to hit the room, but you also have to hit it. And maybe it also has an EP threshold, so you can't find it right away, because it's deep in the zone. Or, if it's not deep in the zone, maybe it doesn't have an EP threshold, but still has its own AC you have to hit in order for it to crop up.

Wait... hold on. Events aren't actions, they're loot. Unlike with a creature, whose loot you get when you reduce its HP to 0, you can get "loot" from a zone over time. The zone still makes attacks against you, representing things like random monster encounters or traps or what have you.

...yeah, I think that's a good start.

Exception-Based Design: Reinventing the Wheel

It occurs to me that some of my issues with "oh no you get random stuff from exploration" is a bit silly. We don't have a core mechanic here, and we need one.

So let's do that.

On your turn, you can make an exploration attack against a zone. If you hit, you deal damage to the zone's EPs. In addition, you trigger one random event from the zone's event list, like finding an entrance to another zone, finding a weird thing, whatever; each event on the list has an EP threshold, which you must meet to hit that event.

That's really all there is to it. Each attack you make represents you wandering around, poking at things, investigating interesting bits of scenery. Your attack is measured in potency, and is probably based off a stat (which reminds me - we were going to change weapon damage to be based off of stats, rather than static values - look into that more).

This is a parallel to combat. We've determined that everyone proficient in a sword can make an attack with a sword and deal damage with a sword. Everyone uses the same attack bonus: mages and einhanders both, at first level, have the "same" chance to hit a guy and deal the "same" damage. Stats influence this, obviously, but they are equally good at the base action. We represent skill with weapons by maneuvers: einhanders have a bunch of tricks up their sleeves that let them do better stuff. Make an attack but at +4 to hit. Make two attacks. Make an attack but deal more damage. The basic maneuvers are, well, basic, but help to represent the abilities of fighters that in trad d20 were pretty solely represented by "hey, you have a slightly (read: 5%) chance better to hit. Go you."

In a similar vein, exploration play needs to do the same stuff. If we've decided that everyone is vaguely competent - and we have - then that means that classes that interact with the exploration/skill system need to have similar abilities that play this stuff up. We've already established that in the skill-based class design notes scattered throughout the wiki, but I think it's important to reiterate it here.

So a basic explorer might have some of the following abilities:

• gain a +4 bonus on an exploration check
• make two exploration checks
• make an exploration check, increase its potency

Now, there needs to be more fiddly bits. Combat isn't just attack and damage - it's also positioning, status effects, healing. There are lots of things to fiddle with in combat, and exploration play needs to be similarly engaging. There doesn't need to be a 1:1 correspondence here, but they need to have similar mechanical bits to play with, otherwise it becomes stale - and in the same vein, we need those elements to have high points of contact with how exploration in the real world actually works, so that there's not crazy disconnect (I know we've already gone abstract with this, but I think that high PoC and abstraction aren't immediately opposed).

So let's try to figure some of those out.

Hidden Stuff and How to Find It

The immediate first thing that comes to mind is hidden stuff. We need a solid way to handle this, in a way that isn't annoying and fiddly like finding hidden objects in early D&D, while also avoiding the trad d20 thing of "roll search checks until you find it." There needs to be... a clear means to finding things that makes sense, both in-world and mechanically, that is sensible without being arduous.

So we've already established that zones have events - these are finding things like passages to other zones, interesting rooms or loot, potential encounters, or what-have-you. That's not what we're talking about here.

Hidden objects need a couple weird stats. They need an EP threshold: this is the minimum EP the zone needs to be reduced to in order for you to even have a chance of finding the hidden thing.

Aha, and we've found out what crits in exploration do: you find a hidden thing in the zone, if one exists at your current EP or higher. Because you spend AP to trigger crits, and AP is gained from Luck, this is entirely sensible to me. If you don't have abilities that let you find hidden stuff, you literally have to stumble across it. You just happened to poke at the right spot in the wall to trigger the secret door. Just like you can't aim well at a target if you aren't an archer (but you can still sorta aim in the sense that you can still hit stuff), you have to be an explorer to have gained the skills necessary to do thorough searches and know how to notice things like a brick out of place that indicate the secret door.

Saying "I search for hidden stuff" isn't something you can say, just like saying "I aim at his eye" isn't a thing you can say unless you're an archer. You have to be an explorer.

Now, let's say that a zone has three hidden objects. We'll call them stone, rod, cup. Zone has 20 EP (pot 8), 15 Def. Stone has EP TH 18, rod has EP TH 14, cup has EP TH 2.

Let's say you've reduced the zone's EPs to 10. So anybody doing exploration right now could crit, and find either the stone or the rod. How do we determine which, or either?

...

Getting held up on this seems silly at the moment, so let's just go with "if you crit, you get a random one from those you can access."

Can't Someone Else Do It: Resource Management

Okay, so now we have a vague outline of how exploration works, and a rough sketch for core mechanics. So now let's talk explorer, the class that deals with all this stuff.

We already have the concept of the exploration turn or adventuring turn - this is a 12-minute stretch of time, and you theoretically can adventure for 40 of them a day. When you take a short rest, it burns one of these ATs or ETs. Let's call 'em ETs, because that makes it a little more generic and can be used for other stuff.

So you already have a limited number of ETs to work with. I'm not sure how we're going to try to force that limit, but let's just pretend for now that we have done that already.

Hmm... does the explorer really need a resource mechanic... going to go with yeah, there has to be one.

Here's my thoughts on this: I think that each of the nine skill classes above can be grouped into one of three sets, with each set having a different base unit for its time-keeping. So explorers are in exploration turns, and so might reckoners and crafters - so they would all use the same resource. Harvesters, merchants, and nobles might all be on a "daily" schedule, so would use a different resource.

Seems... sensible, at first glance.

Let's call the explorer resource grit. I was going to say "energy," but I want something less generic but also with the kind of idea that you are a bit closer to combat time than other skill folk. You need perseverance but have to function in smaller timelines. It fits, deal with it.

Grit will be slow to recover, but doable in a day. So an artisan might be able to craft a couple pieces a day, if he rests between them for awhile.

• Explorers - Per, Brv (notice stuff, bold enough to go there)
• Reckoner - Int, Dex (smarts to hack, dex for fine motor skills)
• Artisan - Con, Wis (con for endurance, wis for intuition and "reading" mats)

Grit will be similar to berserker rage numbers, I think.

Oh yeah, and "expertise die" is gone. Everything is on potency now. Everything.

Lewis and Clark: Bringing Your Friends

A first attempt at an exploration stat block.

So far, most of the mechanics we've got down here are for handling single people. We need to be able to do multiple. We want to avoid a 4e-style issue where only people good at the thing participate. Note that making rolls is participating, but participation does not necessarily include making rolls (though honestly... it probably should).

We've got a couple possible models, let's look at them.

• Model 1: One person is designated as the "leader" for exploration. Each turn, you can make one exploration check, and the zone makes one environment attack against you. Non-leaders can choose "positions" that support the leader in some fashion, generally no rolls required, or zone environment attacks would target a random person (or the group, etc). In this model, zones would not have crazy amounts of HP.
• Model 2: Every person rolls every ET. The zone makes "some number" of environment attacks, or has reactions (much like solos). Zones would have crazy amounts of HP (like a solo).

Model 2 is more engaging - in theory - but also way slower, because everyone rolls every turn. You could say "well the same goes for combat," but ... hmm.

If a berserker, an engineer, and a learner can be in a party together... and participate in their idiom (combat)... then three explorers should be able to all meaningfully participate in the exploration minigame.

There are two ways to handle this -

• Go with Model 2.
• Give explorers a class feature clause thing that says "during exploration even if not designated the leader, you can contribute to the exploration effort as though you were."

Actually... that second one is stupid, because then if you have two explorers and a falconer, the falconer winds up being designated the leader, since the other two can contribute in that case anyway. Maybe change it to "if the leader is an explorer, you can contribute as though you were the leader as well."

...I don't care for this solution.

We'll go to this: everyone can roll if they want. Otherwise they can default to a position, which gives everyone who is rolling a small passive buff, or helps out in other small ways.

Junk in your Way: "Encounters" in Exploration

Let's talk about filling out what goes on here.

So I have this idea that there are three types of encounters in exploration play, that only involve exploration mechanics: locks, obstacles, clutter. Forgive me for terrible names.

Locks are barriers that require some thing to pass through them. So it might be an actual lock, so you need a key or lockpicks... or it might be some sort of weird puzzle bullshit that requires you to touch bricks on a wall in a certain pattern. Whatever. The idea is that it is a puzzle of some kind that you have to deal with... "puzzle" might be a better name.

Obstacles are things like cliffs, chasms, or other physical crap you have to actually navigate to get through.

Clutter is just that - basically if there is a clutter in a zone, that means there's a pile of crap you have to sift through to deal with.

When you encounter one of these things, they're kinda like monsters. You make attacks against them, they might make attacks against you while you're engaged with them. Every one of these things has some kind of loot.

For example, a passage to a new zone might have a lock on it. If you kill the lock, you can access the passage.

A zone might have an obstacle in it that says you can't make progress below a certain point until its defeated.

There might be hidden details in a zone that you have to defeat certain clutter to find.

Then, this crap can be nested. A zone might have (keep in mind, abstract) a room whose doorway has become a chasm due to an earthquake or whatever. Inside the room is a jumbled mess of stuff, but in that jumble is a lockbox.

So this would go obstacle -> clutter -> lock -> prize. You have to defeat each in order.

I think I can justify that. That sounds all pretty sensible to me.

Everybody Keep An Eye Out: Multiple Explorers

Okay, so we had an issue where we weren't sure how to handle multiple explorers at once, and there were some questions about room EPs in there as well.

I have a solution.

There will be "some way" to determine the base progress you make. Let's call it Perception modifier. Right, so if you have a Per of +3, a basic exploration roll will get you potency 3 progress.

If you have multiple people, whoever has the highest is what you use, then everyone else adds +1.

So if you have a four person party and the best Perception in the group is a +2, you make potency 5 progress.

...hmm. Couple issues.

One, people with average Per can't explore on their own. That doesn't make sense; "has eyes" and "has ears" are basic properties of people.

Two, someone with negative Per can still contribute.

So let's revise.

We're going to go with positions as exploration defenses, just like Journey. These are defined at the party level, so because there are no party bonuses, we have to make a way to get them (like classes give bonuses to some defenses, there has to be a way to improve positions).

So there are going to be a small variety of basic actions that, if you hit the zone, you get a +2 to that position for that ET.

You can also try to improve the progress potency with a basic action.

Maybe some other miscellaneous basic actions... anyway, getting ahead of ourselves.

We also need a better way to come up with the base potency for progress. Obviously explorer-types will have kits that improve it somehow or something, but otherwise... yeah.

How Big Is It?: Zone EP Calculations

So here's the deal.

If the first Zelda dungeon (the eagle one) should take around three hours to explore, how do we make that happen maths-wise?

Eagle consists of 14 separate rooms that matter. I've divided these into five zones (based on locked doors).

If we assume three hours, that's 15 ETs.

If we assume that a single adventurer person will have a base progress potency of 4, that means that the total EPs of those five zones needs to be 60 potency's worth.

That comes out to about 4.2 potency per room. Round up, call it 5.

So a first-level dungeon, in terms of exploration, should - in a non-abstract map - have about 5 potency's EP for each room.

The Swoosh: Transitioning Into Combat

Because we've gone abstract with exploration, that means that we no longer have the weird thing where players are moving their tokens on the actual map of a location and run into preset encounters - which then usually was followed by the DM saying "Stop!" and making everything weird.

Instead, when the exploration system calls for a monster encounter, "someone" has to roll an exploration check to determine the encounter type.

"Encounter type" is a broad term, basically denoting a number of things: where players and monsters can place themselves on the tactical; in what order players and monsters place themselves; and whether or not there is a surprise round.

For instance, there might be an encounter type in which players get a "pincer attack," in which they can place themselves in a U-shape, while the monsters have to place themselves in the center. However, maybe the players have to place first - they got into position, but then the monsters noticed them, giving them time to rearrange themselves in response to the players. And maybe the players were surprised by this because they thought they were being stealthy, so there is a surprise round in which the monsters get to go.

Monster encounter types are always described from the players' perspective. The following list goes from worst for players (and the absolute worst combines two encounter types, "surrounded" and "ambush"), to best for players (absolute best combines "pincer" and "sneak attack").

• Surrounded Ambush: Players place first, then monsters in an expanded area. Monsters get a surprise round.
• Ambush: Players place first, then monsters. Monsters get a surprise round.
• Surrounded: Players place first, then monsters in an expanded area.
• Back Attack: Players place first, then monsters.
• Normal: Players and monsters place simultaneously (not allowed to see where the other team places).
• Preemptive: Monsters place first, then players.
• Pincer: Monsters place first, then players in an expanded area.
• Sneak Attack: Monsters place first, then players. Players get a surprise round.
• Pincer Sneak Attack: Monsters place first, then players in an expanded area. Players get a surprise round.

Determination of the encounter type is a special type of exploration check. It is d20 + level bonus + the best of your Intelligence, Perception, and Luck modifiers. Your result is compared to "some value" determined by the monsters in the encounter and the zone you're in, and some other modifiers (if you're carrying light, for instance, that might reduce your roll, because you're easier to see).

What this does mean is that overall we go to a very Final Fantasy-esque system where when combat happens, there is basically a swoosh and then we're in combat mode. There won't be visual continuity of terrain like we've been having in roll20: this basically goes back to the way D&D used to work with "theatre of the mind" kind of stuff for describing what's going on when exploring, then moving to a tactical when combat breaks out.

Also - this should go without saying - this sort of deal doesn't apply to situations in which you're interacting with NPCs who turn hostile, or in other weird situations. This is pretty much used solely for random encounters, or determining the encounter type if a set encounter isn't clear on what's going on.

Channeling Your Inner Sir Robin: Running Away

So let's say you run into some critters that are way above your paygrade. You want to bail, but because we're using limited tacticals, you can't really just "run back up the tunnel" per the rules. So how do we do this?

Certain squares on the tactical will be denoted as "fleeing zones" (these will most likely typically be at the edges of the map). If you enter these squares, on your next turn you can make an exploration check against the encounter to attempt to flee. This check will probably take into account the idea that once you run away, you're specifically trying to avoid the monsters in question, so we won't worry about chase mechanics or any of that nonsense (which would just further complexify the issue).

If you flee from a combat, you get xp for critters you've already defeated, and their xp is taken from the zone's encounter xp. Any critters still living when the last person runs away, though, aren't subtracted - they're still there, and you very well might run into them again, or they might have gone and gotten reinforcements while you were being scared.

Monsters, likewise, can also flee. If a monster flees, you don't get xp for it, and that monster's xp isn't subtracted from the zone's encounter xp.

You're The Captain Now: Roles in Exploration

So, our combat system ostensibly uses the four combat roles from d&d 4e - leader, striker, defender, controller. We don't actually come out and say that, but they're there.

We're going to do the same here with exploration, but a little differently. Basically instead of classes defining your role, you get to pick, and can change over time and all that jazz. There will be some kind of interval thing in which you can't change, but... we'll figure that out later.

For now!

• Point: You take point, putting yourself at the head of the group, watching for danger. When there is a monster encounter, you make the exploration check to determine its type. If no one takes Point, determine who makes the exploration check for monster encounter type randomly, and suffer a -4 penalty to the roll.
• Quartermaster: You are responsible for managing the supplies of the group and ensuring that they're evenly distributed and don't get lost. When there is a check for rations or supplies, you make the checks. If no one is Quartermaster, determine who makes ration checks and supply checks randomly, and those checks are made using the next lowest die size.
• Scout: You don't keep with the main group, instead sniffing out interesting leads and poking into overlooked nooks and crannies. You provide a +1 bonus to progress potency during exploration; however, the zone gets a bonus attack against you each turn.
• Mapper: You keep track of the map, tracking your progress through trackless expanse and deep dungeon alike. Once each turn, the group can traverse to an adjacent zone as a quick action rather than a traversal action. When there is a chance to get lost, you make the exploration check to determine if you are lost or not. If no one is a Mapper, determine who makes the exploration check for getting lost randomly, and suffer a -4 penalty to the roll.

Re-re-reinventing the Wheel: A New Approach to Exploration

There are really three scopes we've been discussing, we've just been blind to it.

Combat-scale is, obviously, combat. Measured in rounds. To regain combat resources you take a break, which moves you along in the next-higher-up scope one time-unit.

Exploration-scale is when you're in a site and looking around for loot and other stuff. You spend actions to explore areas, try to find new locations within the site, and uncover treasure/information/combat encounters. To regain exploration resources you take a rest, which moves you along in the next-higher-up scope one time-unit.

Travel-scale is when you're in the overworld and trying to get from one place to another, or just rooting around looking for interesting places to explore. You spend actions to uncover features in hexes, to try to move to the next hex, and so on. To regain travel resources you camp, which moves you along in the next-higher-up scope one time-unit - but since that doesn't exist, it just moves you ahead one day.

Time

Combat takes place in rounds, which are six seconds (and thus 10 to a minute, so 120 rounds to a hand).

Exploration takes place in hands, which are twelve minutes (and thus 5 to an hour, so 20 hands to a watch).

Travel takes place in watches, which are four hours (and thus 6 to a day).

Taking a camp action in travel moves you to the next calendar day, which is the unit of the next-higher-up theoretical scope, which does not yet exist.

Resources

You expend healing surges and hit points in combat. Once out of combat, you are back in exploration, and can spend a hand to take a break, spending some combat resources to restore other combat resources.

I don't know about exploration yet.

You expend rest, food, and water in travel. At any time you can spend watches to camp; the more you spend, the more rest you recover. You expend non-character resources to restore food and water (that is, they're not part of classes or what not, they are supplies and need to taken with you, etc).

...bah, I'm still unhappy with this relationship between scopes.

Condition

Use the ryuutama concept of "condition," intersect with weather/temperatures gauges in a hex.

...yeah, then rest becomes like hit points. I think that's doable.