Role Playing – Builder’s Guide 10

The challenge: In the last nine articles, you have seen many challenges in creating a balanced, versatile and entertaining RPG. Balancing character design and dice rolls, offering opportunities to strategic, descriptive, and casual players alike. All of these challenges are related, in one way or another, to the balance of the game. Maintaining a balanced RPG – making sure no one character has an overwhelming advantage – is so important and integral to all of these challenges that a single item cannot encompass all of its in-game effects.

But balance is not the last word. This is an RPG, an interactive story. Challenges and combat are important factors. But the characters have to overcome the challenges and the battles to win. Characters must face risks, but if they fight smartly, help each other, and have a modicum of good luck, players should generally hope that they can pull through, sometimes even against superior opposition.

Hence the tenth and final challenge of designing a balanced and versatile role-playing game. Therefore, the aspect of the game perhaps more important than any other, even balance, in the minds of those who will lead their characters through the game world: the challenge of maintaining heroism.

When people play an RPG, they expect their characters to face serious, even epic dangers. They hope that the challenges they face will be difficult, that they will fail at times, that the dice will not always smile. They expect the master of the game to pit them against enemies who do not fall into blows of the sword or fireballs, and those who threaten the lives of their characters in a very direct way. And they hope that, despite this, they have a better than average chance of winning.

However, the level of heroism is not something that the game designer can really control. Certainly the designer must ensure that players have a good chance of succeeding in actions, that they have a chance to defeat enemies with reasonably higher power levels, that weaker enemies can be threatening, but not quite. likely (barring incredible luck or silly tactics on the part of the players) to take down these superior warriors. However, this article is less aimed at those who design the role-playing game than at those who design the role-playing game. play. This is for the game masters, referees, mission lords, and any other title or acronym that includes the name of the player who directs the story, controls the secondary characters, and presents the challenges that the characters must overcome.

The risk: The risk you take lies in the design of your game and the opposition you face against your characters. You are in control of the game world. It’s technically possible for you to go and cast a 30th-level dragon against a group of 5th-level adventurers. Thereafter, your fellow players will usually choose a new game master, but may be done.

This type of encounter, however, is not fun. Likewise, it’s not worth much when a group of Level 30 characters take on Level 5 soldiers. Sure, it can be fun from time to time, giving players a chance to show off their skills and beefing up their power level sooner. to return them to the balanced world of uniform level opponents, but it is not a good option. long-term game.

In addition to enemy levels, you must consider the risk of enemy tactics and layout. Massive damage dealers can be scary, and throwing them every now and then can certainly mystify players, but those opponents are much more likely to take down the entire group, and do so fatally, rather than just dropping them. You want to keep the risk, of course, as much as the game designer. However, if each fight carries a high chance of character death, the game is likely to be quite short. Most of the game’s masters put a lot of thought into developing an entertaining story; It would be a shame if the game ended during the intro!

You can also look at things realistically. Generally speaking, in a fight, people are concerned first with staying alive, second with winning. Perhaps when everyone is hurt, the enemy mage has a good chance of taking down half the group, but is it worth the mage’s life to do so? Most wise warriors would rather live to fight one more day than sell their own lives for assassinations. Not all, of course, but many. Also, many fighters would rather focus on their defenses than attack attack after attack, waiting for an opening to attack rather than attack. offering such to their opponents.

The solution: The trick is, when you design a battle, make it difficult without being overly deadly. This is not to say that you never bet on strong attacks (if the players just don’t pull it off, the opposition isn’t going to hold back forever!), But don’t make them the center of all battles. It is possible, sometimes even easy, to show players a tough fight without threatening them with immediate death.

Defense-oriented opponents are usually very annoying to players, and sometimes even more terrifying than attack-oriented enemies, in their own way. An attacker can deal massive damage, but if he removes it quickly, he is not as powerful. Defenders, however, evade and accept attacks with ease. A well-used and defense-oriented opponent, especially a major villain, can make players feel almost powerless, increasing the perceived threat of the battle even though the villain is also not scoring any hits.

Forage opponents can also benefit from defense-oriented stats, especially those that allow them to take more hits. These enemies are not expected to actually win, but the longer they last, the more opportunities they have to wear down the characters.

A defender with solid offensive power, but not excessive, is a stressful opponent to face. Not only are players having trouble dealing solid damage, but this type of opponent is actually having an effect. This is a good template for an elite but not prime enemy. The main villain’s body guards, for example.

If you use attackers, consider weakening and inhibiting strikes rather than those that directly damage and kill. This increases the danger of the battle without necessarily pushing the characters to the limit. Putting one of these guys in with other opponents, like some tanks to soak up the punishment, can go a long way in making a fight seem more difficult than it actually could be.

Stealth enemies, if used correctly, can annoy players. Stealth / speed type opponents can really make players nervous, as such enemies can hide and attack fast enough that players think they are facing a much larger group than they actually are.

A balanced game makes a game master’s job easier, but the game designer’s hard work is wasted if you don’t give your characters a chance to shine, while preventing them from becoming overconfident. Don’t pamper the players, but don’t feel like every battle must be a grueling test of your resilience. The enemy’s wise design can make players feel as if the battle was much more risky than it really is, keeping the game fun and challenging without threatening to end the entire story in a single encounter.