RPG Design Patterns

Attribute (“Importance”), Currency, Dice Pool, Negotiated Contest, Rank, Resource (“Coins”), Trait

All characters have the single attribute of “Importance.” Importance gauges how important the character is to the story. It has a numeric value equal to the number of coins spent on developing and equipping the character. To permanently remove a character from play, a number of coins must be spent equal to its Importance rating. Note that this does not mean the character is killed. A character can cease to appear in scenes without requiring his death. Conversely, a dead character can re-appear in later scenes as a ghost or in flashbacks.

Characters also have traits. Traits are abilities and other characteristics established as facts through the expenditure of coins by the players. Even a character’s name is a trait that must be purchased. So are physical wounds.

Traits are ranked. Every coin spent on a trait increases its rank by 1. This, in turn, increases the character’s Importance rating. So, if a character sustains a rank 2 wound to his thigh, his Importance rises by 2 which actually makes it harder to eliminate the character from the story.

Disputes between players are resolved in two phases: “Negotiation” and “Bidding.” During Negotiation, the players involved in the challenge try to reach some mutually agreeable solution. If this can be accomplished, play then proceeds without further interruption. However, if an agreement cannot be reached, the conflict proceeds to the Bidding process. The challenger must bid at least one coin. If he does not, he automatically loses the dispute. Assuming the challenger bids at least one coin, the bidding process opens up for all players to contribute to either side. Any previously established facts that are contradicted by either side can be used as additional leverage in the bidding process. The side with the highest final bid wins.

If a player introduces a dispute between a component he controls and a component under the control of someone else, a conflict arises. Each side in the conflict builds a dice pool of d10s. All players can contribute to the dice pools. Dice are added to pools by either drawing on a character’s traits (trait rank = # of dice) and/or buying dice by spending coins (coins spent = # of dice). Traits can only be applied if they are applicable to the confrontation. Once the dice pools are established, both sides roll. All dice rolling 1 to 5 are considered successes, the rest are discarded. The side rolling the greatest number of successes wins. Both sides contribute to the description of the outcome. Naturally, the winner narrates first and the loser must accede to the winner’s previously established facts.

Before each scene, each player makes a secret bid to frame the next scene. The highest bidder gets to describe where the next scene takes place and what characters are initially involved. The coins bid by the winning bidder are used by him to purchase facts in framing the scene. The framer can describe the scene without interruption until the scene’s location and time are determined and at least one component (character) appears.

Turn order normally happens in a clockwise fashion from player to player. A player’s turn ends when he either wants it to or he can no longer afford to introduce new story elements due to a shortage of coins. However, any other player can “Interrupt” another player and seize control of the storyline by spending one coin. Play then proceeds in a clockwise fashion from the interrupting person after he is done.

In any conflict involving opposed dice pools, the contest actually ends up generating coins for both sides of the conflict. So, while characters can lose out in disputes, players only benefit from them. The winner of the conflict adds up the results of all dice that were successes and gains a number of coins equal to that value. The loser gains a number of coins equal to the total number of dice he rolled in the conflict, including both successes and failures. Both the winner and loser buy facts detailing the outcome of the struggle equal to the number of coins generated by the dice. However, both sides then get to keep their newly generated coins to replenish their pools. So, the game essentially rewards conflict.