9/8/2024
All Rules Require a Task and Purpose
Here’s the bottom-line-up-front:
“TTRPG rules should curve players into experiencing and acting-out the scenes the designer intends to have them experience and act out without needing to explicitly tell them to do it.”
As a TTRPG designer, I have a certain feeling I want players to have when they play my game. It shouldn’t feel like D&D5e or Old School Essentials, it should feel like Crowns (that’s the name in case you weren’t aware).
The way I can best guarantee this occurs is by imagining a group of scenes that I think fit the theme, and finding a way to get the rules to make those occur naturally and in a fun way.
My Most Recent Example: Bleeding
A scene in media that I wanted to be able to experience in Crowns is a character suffering a mortal wound, but still mustering the energy to slay their opponent, only to collapse after walking away a few steps. That’s Crowns!
Another scene, of a hero bleeding out and their allies coming over to them to wrap up their wounds only to be shooed away, “There’s no time,” they would say, “I’m too far gone.” That’s Crowns!
And another scene, the players deciding to take precious time during a dungeon run to bandage wounds before pressing on into the darkness, risking a monster patrol wandering upon them. “I’m too weak to continue, I need time to rest.” That’s Crowns!
I wanted those scenes, those modes of thought, those conversations to happen naturally due to the mechanics of the game. That was the goal anyway.
I thought the answer to this was the Bleeding mechanic introduced in Crowns 2e.
Bleeding was a physical damage timer, not unlike hit points. It was initiated by suffering a large-enough amount of damage in one strike (so small hits didn’t effect it, this is real bad bleeding not a-little-trickle-of-blood bleeding, that’s not worth tracking).
Once it started, it would slowly tick down, being sped up by receiving additional large doses of damage.
Stopping bleeding could really only be done out of combat (bandaging up the wound), with the exception of cauterization which could be done quickly but inflicted Peril (mental damage).
This meant that every combat round players had to track their bleeding once it started. And once you got to a certain threshold, you’d pass out due to blood loss or worse, die.
To stop the annoyance caused by updating it each round (which was quickly outweighing any fun gained from it), I altered it to be every minute (10 combat rounds) which made a whole new problem.
Now it’s essentially not a timer, its an extra set of hit points only reduced by taking large hits. Also, it no longer serves the function of the cool, desperate hero’s dying moments. You bleed out too slow to… well… bleed out at all.
How to Spot a Bad Mechanic in your Game
The other day I told my wife I was thinking of replacing Bleeding with another mechanic and she (who has been playtesting Crowns 2e with me for nearly two years at this point) was confused. She said, “How do you know its bad, you only just added it?”
Bleeding had been a mechanic for the entire two years the game had been in development. In fact, it was older than HP was in the timeline of development.
Clearly, it wasn’t sticking in players heads which means it felt inorganic or irrelevant to play. This is the sign of a bad mechanic.
To confirm, I called my other friends in the play-tester group. They all agreed it was sad to see bleeding go, “It just got added.”
Drawing Back: Finding Common Problems
So, Bleeding is gone. However, the problem remains, I want those scenes in Crowns. That’s what I want the game to be like.
I took a look at my combat system. What else did the players never interact with? What else was quickly forgotten?
Well, Death was a little complicated.
When you hit 0 HP you made a save against death with any negative HP as a negative modifier to the roll. If you fail you enter a state of Shock and die after a number of rounds equal to your Willpower score. Any further damage you take while in Shock reduces this number of rounds by the amount of damage you took. This state of Shock is overcome if you are returned to at least half hit points before the timer runs out.
Makes sense, but wordy, and in practice it meant that if someone was sent to 0 HP they didn’t always go into shock right away and even if they did they had 9-12 combat rounds to recover. Essentially meaning they went back up to half or full HP (HP is usually around 9-16 for low-to-mid level characters) and can keep fighting.
Death wasn’t shocking, it was… belated. You died, but you had about half an hour to an hour in real life to think about it. That really sucked.
Also it was too much paperwork and OH MY GOSH…
Shock and Bleeding were both instances of me trying to do the same thing and failing. I wanted those drawn out deaths. Let’s kill two birds with one stone.
Identify a Solution: Simplify and Refine
Here’s the change to Death and Shock:
When a player drops to 0 HP they make a save against death with any negative HP as a negative modifier to the roll. If they fail, they are a dead man walking. They die in d6+1 combat rounds. If they suffer damage again they instantly perish. This cannot be stopped.
That resolved the first two scenes I wanted to occur. Suddenly, there’s a scenario where you may or may not begin to die, and once it starts it doesn’t end. Like being hit with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique.
What about the final scene? I want players to consider taking time to rest or choosing to press on and risk it. However, Crowns doesn’t have two sets of Hit Points like games like Into the Odd, Mausritter, or Esoteric Enterprises, and we already decided bleeding is a bad idea.
Enter Shock, reborn:
Anytime a player is hit by an attack dealing more than 5+ damage they suffer Shock equal to the damage received. If Shock ever equals their Vitality plus their Willpower (their Shock Threshold) the player is suffers the “Marked” condition until their Shock is reduced to 0.
For those not in the know, Marked is a pre-existing condition that is utilized by some monsters or player abilities to worsen effects on the target. The player being Marked represents how they are a easy target due to exhaustion and blood loss.
Shock can be reduced by spending a dungeon turn (10 minutes) bandaging wounds.
Now we have the final scene.
Test It Out
So far, death is lot more entertaining and less number-crunchy than it was before. Players also like being explicitly told that they will not survive, having even a chance at being saved made them skiddish in an attempt to survive. Now, the last time a player became a dead man walking they killed the bad guy, said their good-byes and collapsed due to their wounds.
That’s Crowns!
Likewise, Shock seems to stick with players. They don’t like being Marked, even if it doesn’t always come up in fights. The fact that they have a lingering condition makes them wary and at least one fun argument over whether to keep pushing into the dungeon or take time to rest and risk the torches going out has occurred.
That’s Crowns!
Thank you for reading!
Until we meet again,
GOOD LUCK ON YOUR ADVENTURES
Ward Against Evil 
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