Wolfe Tracks: Old fiction, New Fiction, and more (part 2)
More of what I've been up to, mostly on game mechanics and worldbuilding
Here we go with Part 2! If you missed part 1, you can go catch up here! Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
I mentioned a bit about the game mechanics for Hoist the Colors last time, so pull up a chair and lets wax on, wax off about that some. If this isn’t your thing? Hey, I get it. Don’t worry, the next chapter of Windtracer Tales rolls out this coming Wednesday!
Hoist the Colors and Game Mechanics
Game mechanics are an interesting beast. They are, by definition, a logical structure through which people play games, such as Role Playing Games. Some lean hard into them, some not so much. It all depends on the experience the game is offering, and what the players are looking for.
This is, in my opinion, dialed up to 11 for role playing games.
To lean a bit on another chapter of my life, RPG game design shares a great deal with the same concepts found in software architecture and system design. With RPGs, you are designing a system. In fact, you’re designing a system that is both a ‘workflow platform’ and a ‘framework’. All where the player’s imagination and mind are the ‘code compiler’ and ‘runtime engine’.
RPG game mechanics are about how the dice work, how many to roll, when to roll, how smoothly can a player move through the rules to allow their character to accomplish a task, and so on. For those in the tech space, you should be getting vibes to “user stories”, “UX/UI interface design”, “data models”, etc. Only when the system is used, again, its the player’s mind that is the ‘processor’.
As you might can tell, this is a hill I will absolutely die on.
But there is more and it leans into the writing space.
You’ve Got your Lore in My Game Mechanics!
Which is, I want to say, the right way to do go.
Creating solid, efficient game mechanics for the overall system is important. But you really have to merge it with the lore and worldbuilding. That is when the magic happens.
Let’s take the rules I have in Hoist the Colors for a character attempting to not get hurt. That’s called resistance and armor. Hoist takes a lot of its source mechanics from Forged in the Dark by John Harper, so for those who know Forged, this may feel familiar.
Players get to try and use means and methods to resist having their characters get hurt from trying heroic, yet likely risky or foolish things. Here’s an excerpt from Hoist’s section on this:
When your PC suffers a consequence you don’t like, you can choose to resist it. Just say to the GM, “I’d like to resist that.” Resistance is always automatically effective, the GM says the consequence is reduced in severity or avoided entirely. You would make a resistance roll for your character to see how much stress your character suffers as a result of their resistance attempt. An example of this is in Stress & Scars.
You make the roll using one of your character’s attributes (Wits, Grit, or Willpower). The Game Master chooses the attribute, based on the nature of the consequences.
- Wits: Used for consequences from deception or understanding.
- Grit: Used for consequences from physical strain or injury.
- Willpower: Used for consequences from mental strain or willpower.
For most consequences, your character suffers 6 stress when they resist, minus the highest die roll from the resistance roll. So, if you rolled a 4, you’d suffer 2 stress. If you rolled a 6, you’d suffer 0 stress. If you get a critical result, you also clear 1 stress! There are certain consequences that require your character to suffer more than 6 stress, which are listed under Consequences & Harm.
Ok, straightforward, necessary but a bit dry.
So we expand this by adding on rules for armor after that. That’s where we get into the worldbuilding. Instead of just having “armor protects using X number vs Y number”, etc we go look at worldbuilding for the Professions. What do those types of characters carry around? How can they help? What does that Profession consider important to get their job done, which is healing people.
I could have just put some single sentence in there about “if you have this field kit, you can roll resistance”. Which there is a bit of that for certain items. But in this case I mean the stereotypical “doctor’s black bag”, or a “field medic’s kit” to use a more modern phrase. Such as this little item right here:
- Field Apothecary Kit: A common sight on any Field Apothecary, this is a leather reinforced double canvas bag worn over the shoulder. Like most medical bags, this one contains a wide collection of scalpels, bandages, salves, and other curatives. But your work more often takes you into the battlefield, back alleys, and other rough places. This is reflected in the contents of your bag from Etherwave Crystals to reference books, protective amulets, and emergency rations.
That’s a summary of a worldbuilding item associated with a Profession called “Field Apothecary” ( or Field Medic ). So, I’ve got my worldbuilding (the item and the profession that uses it). Now we match that to the system mechanics.
We’ve got a useful item here for healing, but it can run out of supplies. RPGs are overall a ‘simulator’, and this would be a case where we want to simulate running out of supplies without slowing down the player who is playing the game ( See? Now we’re back to smooth UX interface design and related things ).
Some systems ( *cough* D&D and its legion of children ) go heavy into making you track every little thing. If you like that, hey, go for it. Here, I felt that was too much since we’re working with the greatest computing system known, the human mind. Also, good or great design leans into minimal application for maximum result.
Which means we add a few numbers here to that worldbuilding:
(Quality 1, Armor 2, 1 load)
Along with a short statement that for each use, the item loses 1 Amor value. Once it hits 0, they are out of supplies. What supplies? That’s up to the player and the collaborative story they are telling with the game master. The RPG system is just here to be a guiderail, allowing the player more mental freedom to play, and yes worldbuild. All running on those guiderails.
What determines “Armor 2” vs “Armor 3”? Well, look to your worldbuilding. What’s the profession and would it be fun in a story to read about a character lugging around a huge bag or a modest bag?
Now we’re back to the lore and worldbuilding dancing hand in hand with those system mechanics.
As you can tell, I’m closing in on the key parts of the system: healing, recovery, and so on. This means the ‘core’ rules are basically done and ready. Next, would come another key part called ‘character creation’. Following that would be ‘creating your ship’, and lots of advice for a game master.
Lots done with plenty to go. But it’s worth writing, designing, and inventing in the end.
So that’s it for my part 2! If you made it this far, thank you for sticking around! I hope you liked a little view into RPG game design and why worldbuilding is so very important for RPG design, just as it is for writing fiction!
If you’re a paid subscriber. I don’t even come close to having he words for how grateful I am. Thank you. If you’re seeing this as a free subscriber and like what you see, I would appreciate your support. If a paid subscription isn’t to your liking, you can always buy me a coffee!
Last, it’s been said before but I want to say it again… sure, I write for me because I love the stories and settings, but I’m also writing for you. I appreciate each and every one of you.
Now, if you’re wanting a deeper look at Hoist the Colors, take the plunge here at the link: Hoist the Colors. For Windtracer, jump over here: Windtracer: Adventures in Awldor.
Until next time!
-Kummer Wolfe