Alternate Resource System: Rage Meter/Momentum Counter

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 4:30 pm

Okay, so, a couple of years ago when we were kicking down possible resource management systems one proposal that came up during the hullabaloo of Winds of Fate. It works similarly but with a subtle change to it; instead of being a random roll determining what moves you get your moveset changes upon some change in combat parameters. Some quirks:

1.) You can't peg it to player damage, that just leads to bag of rats and Five Moves of Doom. Momentum Counter only works if it's pegged to player hit points. That way exploiting it would consist of people cutting themselves before they engage in major battles and while weird as hell is an acceptable balance tradeoff.

2.) While there's no reason why Rage Meter can't be used to make people less effective as the battle goes on I think that's needlessly frustrating. RM should make your character better.

3.) Rage Meter is a lot more acceptable with the 'scaling tier' power hierarchy (where each set of powers than the one before is strictly better rather than being of equal utility) whereupon some tiers are strictly better than others. In WoF that option was discarded quickly because there are always some assholes at a table start foaming at the mouth about rolling four '1's in a row. For Momentum Counter however the impact cancels itself out; sure, you took a critical, but you got a shiny new skillset! Or: oh, sure, you're not being able to use Mountain Cleaving Blow but you're still at full health!

4.) In fact I don't even think that Rage Meter should give you separate but equal utility. A lot of players will just get flat-out upset at being told that they're being boring and risk adverse and need to use something else, even if it's from the system. Also a lot of people will come to rely on a favored tactic and unlike WoF which announces doing this ahead of time the whole having to shake up your tactical paradigm thing occurs at an interval that's unfavorable to the player (getting hit).

5.) I think that you'll have an easier time getting the grognardbase to accept RM/MC, at least initially, than WoF. Even though it has all of the same thematic and metagame objections. It just feels more intuitive to a lot of people. I really think that FrankTrollman fucked up when he called it 'Winds of Fate' but that's the name we're stuck with.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 5:23 pm

As I am sure you have noticed, the 4e thing where monsters become way more dangerous when they become bloodied exacerbates the focus fire aspects of the system. If you're OK with that, then by all means have people open up tier 3 limit breaks when they are in the hit point danger zone. Just keep in mind that it encourages hitting targets who have just taken damage as like the main thing. The second thing it does is encourages people to delay combat healing moves until just after people act, but if you don't have combat healing you won't notice that aspect.

-Username17

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 6:58 pm

I'm just gonna restate my position here, since nothing has changed in the past 6 months:

Rage Meter: used in Samurai Showdown and a very large number of videogames since. Therefore well established and easy to explain to players by saying "it's like ____" and you get to deal more damage as you take more damage.

WoF: Used by exactly one character in exactly one session of Dragon_Child's Sharn Watch D&D game. Debated extensively online and yet difficult to explain most promising variants of it as they are very different than the prototype mechanics in Bo9s classes and 4e monster recharge powers.

So I don't even care which is better in the abstract, because Rage Gauge was in playable games starting 15 years ago designers can draw on experiences with those games to make a version of Rage Meter that works best for their game and WoF is still nowhere near ready for prime time and not getting any closer since nobody at all is playtesting it anywhere.

Furthermore: Why you think you're stuck with a name you dislike for a mechanic that just-about-nobody has ever used is truly baffling. Heck, even on Milhouse's character sheet it was not listed as "Winds of Fate" but as "Chaotic magic which you could not possibly hope to compehend!" So currently you actually have more precedent to call it CMwYCNPHtC than WoF.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:22 pm

Josh wrote:So I don't even care which is better in the abstract, because Rage Gauge was in playable games starting 15 years ago designers can draw on experiences with those games to make a version of Rage Meter that works best for their game and WoF is still nowhere near ready for prime time and not getting any closer since nobody at all is playtesting it anywhere.

Josh, that's totally wrong. WoF has been used for a long time in RPGs. There are seriously over twenty games that explicitly use cards for resource management, which is really close to the Green Arrow system. You can make the argument that it suspends people's WSoD but saying that game designers don't have experience from other games to draw upon is just not true.

In fact games with a heavily random element to the resource management system are a lot more plentiful than games with Rage Meter that affects the resource management system. If you're going to use the 'it's common in video games' argument then you wouldn't be using in favor of RM, especially when talking about RPGs.

Now there are a few games (again, non-RPGs) out there that use the Bag of Rats Rage Meter but we're specifically trying to avoid that system.

Josh wrote:Furthermore: Why you think you're stuck with a name you dislike for a mechanic that just-about-nobody has ever used is truly baffling.

Exactly the same reason why you can't choose your own nickname again after it sticks.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:37 pm

I maintain that the versions of what I shall henceforth call CMwYCNPHtC expounded upon endlessly by you and Frank are in fact notably different than the prototype mechanics of games using cards for resource management.

I further maintain that the two of you are full of shit on the subject until such time as someone, somewhere does more testing of systems closer to your matrix-based ideas in actual games than the single session I have personally been a part of. That counts as an open mind, but that session was six months ago and I have yet to see another denizen post any sort of incident or anecdote report, so it rather seems to me like the biggest defenders of CMwYCNPHtC are unwilling to test their preferred variants of it - which is hardening my soft stance that the simplicity of "everything is at will" for a power management system is a bigger advantage than the increased variation and tactical complexity of any and all other resource management schemes into a slowing seething hatred of a supposedly superior theoretical that will never actually exist.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:52 pm

Now if I can just convince you to ban multiclassing I will call you Kaelik 2.0.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 3:10 am

FrankTrollman wrote:As I am sure you have noticed, the 4e thing where monsters become way more dangerous when they become bloodied exacerbates the focus fire aspects of the system.

I'm not sure how it exacerbates "This is what everyone does all the time anyway". I mean, people always take foes out one at a time (unless they can stunlock a group or whatever). Nobody ever goes "Right, I'll slap this guy for a few HP, then run over and hit that one" etc. with the exception of MCs who are deliberately "playing nice" for the PCs.

I'm never going to be okay with adding more ways for dice to screw the players (Lago: that guy isn't the asshole, you are for making them use a shitty system where the dice can indeed screw them over and over). Note that "rolling to hit" is a generally accepted way for the dice to screw you, because your own number-skills can be used to reduce the impact of the die, leaping off the RNG.

So as a mid-point between "Everyone uses their favourite move all the time*" and "Hahaha, you rolled shit again", yes, Super Gauge is an awesome idea. And nobody even notices the absence of combat healing (possible exception: self-healing) or focus-fire.

Though my vote is to go with the best fighting game ever and call it Tension.

*Assuming some not-3E game where you don't notice this because combat is so fast you miss the whole thing if you fetch a cup of tea, so you're already playing some crappy game where the fights are so long and boring that you NEED to break the monotony.

Mask_De_H · Post by **Mask_De_H** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 4:07 am

Kaelik wrote:Now if I can just convince you to ban multiclassing I will call you Kaelik 2.0.

YOUR OWN CLONE! NOW NEITHER OF YOU WILL BE VIRGINS

I'm with Koumei and Josh here; a Rage Gauge/Super Meter/Tension Bar (Guilty Gear owns) unlocking powers feels like a more intuitive middle ground method for unlocking things you want to make feel special or restrict. It's the main way of making things feel Sailor Moon/end of the episode-ish and that was a design goal that ended up birthing WoF (somehow) as we went from SAME to Fantastic! to now.

In essence, though, I don't entirely fear "spamming" at-wills as long as powers are kept on the RNG and either have broad applications (I am perfectly okay spamming Silent Image for the rest of my character's life), or all have specifically useful applications (Hadouken for keeping enemies away, Shoryuken for punishing charges/airborne enemies, Tatsumaki Senpukyaku for charges).

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 5:14 am

The simplest, most versatile solution is just have some Action Point type stuff and fluff it as whatever.

Action pointed near the beginning of battle? That was your Dynamic Entry into the fray.
Action pointed while bloodied? Yep, yer rage kicked in
Action Pointed 'cause the enemie's bloodied? Your Bloodlust is driving you

Perhaps add some "+1 to action when you are bloodied/not bloodied/etc." to feel like you're more distinct.

How Samurai Showdown has Rage, or Street Fighter has a super bar works great because you don't need to spend extra time thinking about it, it's just part of the real time battling, it loses some of the fun when you have to track it manually.

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 5:39 am

Umm, Ogre your suggestion does the very thing you said that wouldn't be fun to do.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 9:17 am

Koumei wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:As I am sure you have noticed, the 4e thing where monsters become way more dangerous when they become bloodied exacerbates the focus fire aspects of the system.
I'm not sure how it exacerbates "This is what everyone does all the time anyway". I mean, people always take foes out one at a time (unless they can stunlock a group or whatever).

Actually, the existence of stunlocks is exactly why you are full of shit. If you have a single target stunlock, you use it on whoever does the most damage. That's a different calculation than the targeting rubric to decide where to put a damaging attack. A damaging attack should go to whatever enemy has the least remaining health for the amount of damage that they do.

The problem with limit breaks is that it makes those two equations the same. Because enemies ramp up in threat when they take damage, the biggest threat is the same monster as the enemy with the biggest offense to defense ratio. The damaging attack targets a dangerous and weak enemy, which makes them both more dangerous and weaker - which means that are then the optimal target for both damaging attacks and stunlocks.

In a normal critical existence failure scenario, the stunlocks target the boss and the dps targets the skirmishers. It's not very deep, but at least it's something. Add in damage ramp-up, and stunlocks target the skirmishers too, and the game becomes even shallower.

Damage ramp up can be interesting in and of itself, you just have to be aware that its primary effect on the targeting decision is to exacerbate a problem that already exists: the "focus fire" problem of rewarding boring and predictable tactics.

-Username17

A Man In Black · Post by **A Man In Black** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 9:42 am

Condition tracks and HP are basically interchangeable. Condition tracks (usually) involve death spirals and D&D-style/fighting-game-style HP doesn't, but they're both measures of your capacity to absorb attacks. 3e has many, many tracks, some of which are entirely binary—you are either paralyzed or not, entirely awake or entirely asleep, etc.—and only one of which is HP-style. Fundamentally, they're the same damn thing: you can survive five red hits, three blue hits, and four green hits.

So in a hypothetical game, assuming the problem of some-but-not-all characters skipping all the way from 100% to incapacitated on their respective tracks is solved:

Multiple tracks encourages everyone to get on the same track, and makes anyone who isn't on that track feel a little incompetent. If afraid is a track, then everyone who can't cast Fear or growl intimidatingly or shake skull totems or what the fuck ever is going to feel kind of useless, because they have to beat a whole track on their own. Multiple non-binary tracks also involve a shitload of paperwork: goblin #1 has taken 4 blue damage, 5 green damage, 2 yellow damage, etc.

A single track on which all attacks score damage encourages focus fire, for the reasons Frank explained. Also, it means that incapacitated conditions either take a lot of paperwork, lead to occasionally nonsensical results, or both. Does seducing someone down to nearly-incapacitated, and then punching them in the face result in a KO or a seduction?

Monocolor parties versus focus fire seems to be the main tradeoff, unless someone can cut this knot.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 5:17 pm

Now that I think about it, CAN can do something like the 'momentum' thing: your 'momentum counter' is the difference between your CAN and their CAN; the bag of rats doesn't work because you're actually decreasing your opponent's CAN rather than increasing your own, and if a falling CAN does make you not hit as hard, it encourages spreading out your attacks too, so that you can weaken the attacks of all of your enemies.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Sep 26, 2011 6:37 pm

A few other concerns about RM:

The first is that non-boss monsters probably shouldn't use RM or at least not to the degree that PCs use. Having four condition tracks for players is fine, monsters should top out at like two: bloodied and unbloodied. This also means that you can't have every monster evolve a new set of tactics. While it's definitely okay for a lizardman archer to start flipping out and go about breathing fire and slashing with poisoned claws if he's too damaged, in a 4-12 sized monster party this is just too complex. On the bright side it's totally okay to have some monsters get stronger, some monsters get weaker, and some to just get a separate-but-equal set of tactics as opposed to making it so that PCs only get stronger. It's desirable, even, so that players don't know what they're going to get and to ease up on focus fire.

The flip-flop in power selection need to occur in a range large enough so that one won't be excessively skipped. For example you can't have players accessing a 'secret' tier of powers that only happens when they're down to 20% health. Even if you didn't have combat healing those kinds of moves would almost never see play.

By the same token having a power set come online when someone is down to 80% health but a different set comes online when they're at 60% health means that the 80% health won't see much use, which may make it a waste of design space.

Both of the above mean that you need to have enough of a range of hit points so that people will at least once every other combat be able to get off a couple of powers in a RM state. So you either have padded sumo or you only have a couple of evolving power sets.

As far as 4E D&D goes, I think that a set of different moves at 0-33%, 33-66%, and 66-100% would be the best.

Finally, if you're designing a game where combat is over in like 2-3 rounds RM/MC probably isn't even a system you want to use at all. It just adds too much complexity. You probably want to use At-Wills or WoF.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 2:27 pm

A lot of the suggestions in this thread were aimed towards D&D, but you know what? Rage Meter would actually work a lot better for modern action/urban fantasy games like Shadowrun and superhero games.

People actually want there to be a reason for Wolverine to casually slice the face off of mooks but then flip out like a buzzsaw ninja if he gets sufficiently injured. People also want Timothy Dalton and John McClane to get more adept (in a way beyond experience) at fighting mooks as the day goes on. People also want Darkseid to lose his cool and start missing with Omega Beams as he gets more injured but have them be more powerful. Etc..

I can't really say the same for fantasy games where you chew through opponents and most critters aren't even supposed to get a line in combat, let alone a second wind or a death scene more dramatic than 'Moriah double backflips and she slices off five of their heads at once.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 7:00 pm

Rage meters work great for a single character fighting multiple characters that don't have rage meters, or two characters with rage meters fighting each other.

There are a few things that do this:
[*]Fighting video games (1 v 1).
[*]Comics where heroes and villains always pair off and have separate fights despite being on 'teams'.
[*]Comics where all the heroes get to fight a single lone uber-villain with their rage meters maxed out.

So just mandate that. All the heroes fight mooks that don't have rage meters and whose weak attacks don't increase the PCs' rage meters. Then the boss appears, and sends out a mirror team against the PCs. The PCs can't attack the boss yet, but each has to choose which enemy team member they will fight, and then have separate combats. If a PC falls, one of the winning characters has to fight in her place. When all the enemy team members are defeated, all of the PCs' rage meters max out and they fight the boss (who has a rage meter that starts at zero).

Every episode's combat sequence will go roughly like that. Sound familiar?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Oct 24, 2011 7:59 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote: So just mandate that. All the heroes fight mooks that don't have rage meters and whose weak attacks don't increase the PCs' rage meters. Then the boss appears, and sends out a mirror team against the PCs. The PCs can't attack the boss yet, but each has to choose which enemy team member they will fight, and then have separate combats. If a PC falls, one of the winning characters has to fight in her place. When all the enemy team members are defeated, all of the PCs' rage meters max out and they fight the boss (who has a rage meter that starts at zero).

Every episode's combat sequence will go roughly like that. Sound familiar?

Here's my issue with that sort of combat paradigm in a TTRPG:

So, assuming 4 PCs, assuming they hit enemies 75% of the time, take out a mook in one hti, and a named NPC in three hits, that they fight three mooks and one mirror per PC - then the mook fight takes them 4 rounds, the mirror matches takes 4 rounds per PC (plus any time lost to healing, status ailments or PC elimination). At 3 minutes per player turn thats at least 8 rounds at 15 minutes a round (counting the MC as a player), meaning you've spent at least half of a four-hour session on setup fights.

If there's non-combat stuff in the session, or if you have a complex terrain setup, or if people need to take a smoke/potty breaks, that leaves you rushed for any boss fight that isn't anti-climactic due to rage-meter novas.

I'm actually serious when I say that you should consider implementing the "5 minutes until end of episode button" for RPGs using that sort of combat framework. Unlocking novas based on the actual time remaining in the actual session is less for PCs to track during the buildup fights, has the same result when things are on schedule, and also helps to speed things up when you fall behind schedule or slow them down and encourage PCs to use stalling and holding tactics when they are ahead of schedule.