Years ago I read something about putting as much player
facing information on the character sheet and to make it obvious what they were
and their chance of success. Well I think I did.
Anyways I ran into another post about the same sorta thing re dice mechanics.
Anyways I ran into another post about the same sorta thing re dice mechanics.
It was this style of reasoning re transparent vs opaque dice
that sorta pushed some of the BRP/RQ/KAP derived nature of Mechaknights. All
the skills were roll under percentiles so it was clear how likely a PC was to
succeed. Were to revisit that particular iteration of a mecha game, I'd
probably use a d10 or d20 because I really hate rolling percentile dice, but
that's minor.
An interesting thing about what Luka calls transparent is
they are linear, and swingy, and that's not something to shy away from. Not
only is it easier to have an idea of the odds, but the results can be more
exciting.
And the opaque dice mechanics obfuscate the odds of events.
There is also the weighting of results towards certain values, bell curves etc.
This gets me thinking about the idea that different parts of
a game, or even different games within a game, yet another
thing Luka's written about that I've long thought about too, could, and
maybe even should, have different mechanics. In, uh, retro-dnd(?) combat is a
d20 rolling high, thief skills are roll-under percentile, the non-human's all
have X in 6 skill like abilities, and frequently ability scores get used for
skills with a d20 roll-under. One good reason to do all these disparate
mechanics is that they separate these aspects from each other. But having all
these different dice mechanics is also off-putting. If they weren't we wouldn't
have so many different games that have unified resolutions system, including
DnD.
So I've been thinking a lot of thoughts about
scratchbuilding an ersatz Macross rpg. It has to have aerial combat that is
quick and exciting. It probably needs mecha fisticuffs rules. And it definitely
needs at least one set of rules for the Power of Song/Culture. To me it would
feel boring if the weird space magic that music becomes as the franchise
progresses used the same kind of mechanics as the combat and social interaction
portions of the game. Although it could be argued that social interactions
might also warrant being treated similar to space music magic. Macross is a
franchise that is superficially mecha, but it honestly about interpersonal
drama and the power of friendship conquering the enemies of humanity. Except
for Macross Plus, which is weird, but I love it the most, both versions.
I don't have very concrete ideas where I'll be starting with
this, probably something KAP, DnD, or PbtA derived thing.