RPG Design Patterns

Provide a gauge that aids a character sometimes and hinders him at other times. This forces players to make difficult character defining decisions to balance various goals.

Not applicable

Attribute, Gauge, Skill, Trait

If a game gives characters a gauge where high values are beneficial at certain times and low values are beneficial at others, the game follows the Conflicted Gauge pattern. Ordinarily, the values associated with the gauges are numerical, but this is not a requirement of the pattern. A Conflicted Gauge may be an attribute, skill, trait, or any other gauged characteristic. An attribute that is a Conflicted Gauge is said to be a Conflicted Attribute. Similarly, a trait that is conflicted is said to be a Conflicted Trait, etc.

A conflicted gauge could be set up to reflect a person's power or capability within one domain and, at the same time, represent the character's weakness in another. A game could incorporate a “Rage” attribute that increases a character's physical strength and speed values, but at the same time reduces the character's ability to reason.

Conflicted gauges can also encourage players to voluntarily portray their characters with self-destructive behaviors. A game designer might use a conflicted gauge as a form of “temptation.” The game mechanics might encourage a player to take a short and easy route to power or success by allowing him to quickly raise a gauge to high values but, in so doing, force him to accept some detrimental longer-term effect. In such a case, the player has to make a real decision as to whether he should raise the value, lower it, or leave it the same. Short term needs must be balanced against long- term goals. So, a certain amount of angst is naturally associated with the gauge. Setting or changing its value forces a player to make a statement of how much he values the gauge’s benefits as weighed against its eventual costs.

For a gauge to be conflicted, it must benefit a character in one way, and be detrimental to him in another.

Use the Conflicted Gauge pattern when your design goals include one or more of the following:

1. A need for characters to exhibit self-destructive behavior at times.
2. A need for particular character strengths to simultaneously exhibit themselves as character weaknesses,
3. A desire to force players into choosing between short term needs and long term goals.

The primary benefit of the Conflicted Gauge pattern is that it provides a mechanism whereby a character aspect is both good and bad. It can be used to encourage character actions that are ultimately self-destructive in nature but are, nevertheless, rational role- playing options from the player’s perspective. Thus, a player who always seeks to do the “best thing” for his character may end up with the character performing actions with detrimental consequences. The result is that role-playing is enhanced with rational ways of simulating real world irrational human decisions.

Games incorporating Conflicted Gauges essentially force players to frequently make judgments concerning the direction they want to take them (up or down). This means that any conflicted gauge is likely to draw a significant amount of player attention. Those that are incorporated should be tightly focused onto the core premises of the game. Conflicted Gauges make a very strong statement about the game’s overall theme and purpose, so don’t muddle your game design with extraneous ones.

The Conflicted Gauge pattern states nothing about what the gauge simulates, other than that it must entail two mutually exclusive characteristics. Just because they are opposed, though, does not mean that the beneficial aspects of the gauge must be of the same nature as its detrimental effects. Players will be willing to accept handicaps concerning the gauge that range far afield from its benefits as long as its hindrances seem rationally connected in some way to its augmentations.

A game about the self-destructive lives of drug addicts could give characters attributes of “Addiction,” “Stress,” and “Cool.” In this scenario, Cool could be the attribute used in inter-personal conflict resolutions, whether social or physical. High values of Cool are always good. Stress would be an attribute that is subtracted from all Cool rolls, and increases whenever conflicts fail (see the Trauma Gauge pattern). So, high Stress values are always bad. Addiction, on the other hand, could be set up as a Conflicted Attribute. If a character is stressed, he can “binge” on his preferred mind altering drug to quickly lower his Stress by an amount equal to his Addiction. Every time he does so, he must make a roll to determine if his Addiction increases by one. However, the higher his Addiction value, the more expensive his habit becomes as he needs more and more of the drug to induce the Stress relieving effects. If he cannot indulge in a minimal amount of the drug after a number of days equal to one week minus Addiction, he adds one point to Stress every day he goes without.

Call of Cthulhu allows characters to gain the “Cthulhu Mythos” skill. Gaining ranks in this skill gives a character better insight into terrifying secrets of the universe. Such knowledge is highly valuable in surviving encounters with the unspeakable horrors populating the game’s setting. However, as a character’s rank increases in this skill, his sanity decreases. So, as characters learn more and more about the hopeless reality of the world, they become more and more mentally unstable. Thus, the Cthulhu Mythos skill is conflicted.

My Life with Master has characters who are minions of Evil Masters. All minions have attributes of “Self-Loathing,” “Weariness,” and “Love.” The Self-Loathing attribute is conflicted because it aids minions in performing horrific, monstrous deeds for their masters but, at the same time, hinders them in any attempts at disobeying their Master’s commands.

Sorcerer is a game in which characters are humans that summon and bind powerful demons to their will. Each character has a conflicted attribute known as “Humanity,” which also follows the Idiom pattern (and possibly also the Resource pattern). Humanity is used in conflict resolution rolls for both summoning and banishing demons. When used to banish demons, Humanity augments the roll. However, the attribute detracts from a character’s chances of success when summoning demons.