Tuesday, December 12, 2023

Game Design Part 9 - Stressing Out

I will have a post soon about character types and associated powers and abilities and everything like that, taking the first steps into firming things up into an actual playable game. For the moment, however, I want to share my thoughts about how characters will take damage in the game and get this written down while it’s fresh in my mind.



Characters will have two option blocks on their character sheets with which to activate various powers, abilities and actions. These will look something like this:


Guiding Options

2

4

6

7

8

10

12








5

3

1

0

1

3

5




2







4







6





Opposing Options

3

5

7

9

11






4

2

0

2

4



1





3





5




Everyplace you see a number on the table, that’s an option the player can take. When a player takes damage they mark any one of these boxes (the one with the numbers) as “stressed.” A stressed option can’t be used.


If a player is ever “stuck” taking a stressed option because all their dice choices leave them with no other choice (or maybe they choose to do it for some reason) then they become stressed out.


The player still selects and executes the option, but they must include in their role-play an explanation of how using this option has stressed them out and knocked them out of the scene.


As players advance during play, they will unlock powers and gain numbers in new boxes. When this happens the character will not only become more diverse, but also have more ability to survive being stressed out.


The urgency of the scene can be used to the players advantage when assigning stress. For example: if the scene die is in the red zone, a player could safely stress the green, yellow, and orange options (under the number 7) in their option blocks because those options are being superseded by the “red” level options due to the urgency of the scene.


Feel free to join my Facebook Group to discuss this post and anything related to RPG's and geekdom! Stay tuned!!


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