[Resolution Mechanic] NEVER play with matches!
Sneaking in an entry at the very end...
The legendary Prismatic Wasteland issued a challenge for the new year!
Here is my submission. Late. And half-finished.
I feel like diceless resolution mechanics using dexterity get a bad wrap. Sure, there are games like Space Fleet where it really doesn’t work, but surely if we put our heads together we can create something better than these crusty 80s designers “Andy Jones” and “Jervis Johnson”. What’s that…? Warhammer Quest? Space Hulk? Blood Bowl?! Okay okay, I’m outmatched.
Inspired partly by TableTopCuriosityCabinet’s post, and partly by Buffon’s Needle Problem (I feel so intellectual writing that) I’ve been breaking every childhood taboo and playing with matches.
I’ve been after a kind of “unclear-success” result for a while, where players aren’t sure if they were successful or unsuccessful. This is particularly handy for intrigue games, where you don’t want to reveal if that NPC was really persuaded or will backstab you horribly later.
Sure, you could just do this better through not having set social mechanics, as proven excellently here by Chocolate Hammer’s Boot Hill play report, but I thought it’d be an interesting challenge to try and figure out a method where a “half-success” or a “failed success” was just as likely to be baked in.
Here’s what I came up with.
(Actual mechanic starts here!)
Ingredients
A) One piece of suitably grungy paper, plus some pen markings.
B) Twenty matches, colour divided into two sets of ten to make clear up easier.Procedure
1 - When something needs to be decided by chance, the player stands a suitable distance* above the paper and casts down ten matches in one drop.
2 - Following this, the GM (or another player potentially) casts down the other ten likewise.
3 - Matches over the edge of the paper are removed. Matches over the lines move onto the side their “head” lands on**.
4 - Wherever the most matches lie is the primary result, followed by the next-most, which produces a secondary result***.
*This would probably have to be agreed upon by spectating players and the GM together. Matches have a handy way of “bouncing” when dropped, which negates some of the ability to “aim”, but ideally the higher the drop the better.
**Alternatively, these matches count for both results, or are divided by where most of their body lies.
***Degrees of success could also be used, by counting the matches in each quadrant as a single degree of “YES” or “NO” but I’ll leave that to be tinkered with.
A play example? Why not.
Here, we have Johnny who is trying to break down a door. Johnny throws his ten matches (from a suitable height). Four fall over the edges of the paper, thus out of play. This is the result;
The GM then throws her ten matches, marked with red tail-ends in pen. Five fall out of play. This is the result;
So, remembering we count by where the “heads” land, we have eight in the “COMPLICATION” zone, two in “YES”, and one in “NO”.
A “COMPLICATION” with a “YES”.
“Although you manage to make a small hole in the door, you can only fit your head through. Furthermore, your wife has locked the door and is now clasping a kitchen knife.”
Why use this mechanic?
-The results are incredibly visual and easily customisable (you could alter the size of each segment for different chances, alter the number of matches, or remove a segment altogether)
-It allows for these aforementioned “successful fails”, wherein the result can be ambiguous or a combination of results.
-It doesn’t use dice at all, so is useable while incarcerated in the US.
-Casting down small sticks is inherently fun. You feel like a soothsayer casting bones.
-If anyone needs to start a fire you’re prepared.
-You have to be physically in the same space to use this, so it encourages actual physical interaction over mindlessly staring at a computer screen.
The downside, of course, is that it is inherently easy to cheat with a good aim - and things tend to always land towards the middle. I like to run scenarios as increasingly complicated, hence the big middle section, but in hindsight I would’ve made it only 20% and not 33%. The other major downside is flammability, but I’m sure you could give someone a concussion with ordinary d6s or something so safety features in resolution mechanics mean nothing.
Anyway, that’s all on this for now.
If you’re sticking around, I’ve released a new solo game on itch about Buddhist philosophy and the inherent nature of suffering to existence. It’s a laugh a minute, you should play it.
I’ve also been playing a bunch of Swyvers so expect some play-reports and guides to city generation soonish.
Thanks so much for reading! Stay safe, and a belated happy new year.
