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      Wind in the Flowers: Re-inventing a Game

    Systems Change

*R. Sean Borgstrom*

February 13, 2002

The new edition of *Nobilis* needed a stronger combat system. The game

itself does not depend on action or physical conflict, but stories of

combat play a big part in roleplaying games and speculative fiction in

general. I consider the old combat resolution system a bit weak, and

that's unfortunate. Many people enjoy roleplaying combat a great deal.

So we revised the system for greater usability and excitement.

In building a new combat system, I set out to avoid a phenomenon I think

of as "the death of a thousand cuts." In many roleplaying combat

systems, if you bruise or nick a character seven, or twenty, or even a

hundred and fifty times, the character eventually falls over dead. With

proper design, such systems are realistic. Properly managed, they can

produce dramatic results. But I don't like this phenomenon in *Nobilis*.

Characters in *Nobilis* transcend biology. Even ordinary humans have a

mythic, spiritual element to their nature. The Nobilis, the main

protagonists and standard PCs, have a bit of the /divine/ in them as

well. If the immortal spirit plays as large a role in sustaining life as

proper liver and kidney function, slow accumulation of minor mechanical

damage shouldn't kill a character off.

The first principle of the new combat system is simple. It should always

take at least one significant blow to bring a character down. An

assortment of scratches does not suffice to kill someone. There must be

an actual mortal wound.

Other systems have implemented this idea. Traditionally, a character can

take an arbitrary amount of damage in these systems, with normal

deleterious effects, but cannot /die/ without taking a level of the

deadliest form of damage.

In a way, such games reprise the "death spiral" seen in various early

and modern systems. The more damaged a character becomes, the easier it

becomes to suffer further damage. Eventually, the character falls to the

center of the spiral - incapacitation or death. Healthy characters are

extremely hard to kill, however fell the blow. After taking a few hard

knocks, however, the character becomes vulnerable.

Realistically, this makes sense. Certainly, very few character types

actually get /better/ at avoiding damage when they become wounded. The

talent is rare and specific and, in *Nobilis*, players should purchase

the talent as a player-designed Gift. It does not belong in the main

combat system. The death spiral also makes dramatic sense. Systems built

around a death spiral tend to make sure that characters /do/ survive one

or two blows before death. Finally, it makes the character's injury more

real for the players if it has a mechanical impact on the game.

The standard death spiral bothers me, however, for the same reason that

nicking and scraping characters to death does. As characters descend the

spiral, it becomes ever easier to inflict that fatal blow. This

undermines the purpose of requiring at least one significant attack. To

me, if someone beats a character into helplessness with a series of

minor blows, and then finishes them off at leisure with a gun held

against their eye, it's not the gunfire that killed them. It's the minor

beating that left them unable to stop their enemy from shooting their

head point blank.

The first unusual element of *Nobilis*' new combat system works as

follows. It's not the /last/ blow that must be particularly lethal to

take one of the Nobilis down. Taking a deadly wound isn't the final

indignity for a player character. Instead, a character /begins/ to

suffer the game mechanical effects of damage when they take their first

terrible injury.

From a traditional perspective, *Nobilis*' new death spiral curls

backwards. A character has one to three Deadly wound levels. When they

suffer a truly horrible wound -- damage to the heart, a terrible fall, a

bullet to the head, serious burns, a lightning strike -- they lose one

such wound level. Until they run out of Deadly wound levels, lesser

damage has no game effect. A character also has a few Serious wound

levels. /After/ they run out of Deadly wound levels, significant damage

costs them a Serious wound level.

Finally, characters have a few Surface wound levels. When they run out

of Deadly and then Serious wound levels, even a modest knocking around

costs them a Surface wound level. When they run out of /those/, they

die. Characters have between four and nine levels all told.

Before I discuss this any further, I must admit to one obvious flaw. It

/is/ unintuitive for mortal characters to completely ignore any number

of Serious wounds received while they still have a Deadly wound level

remaining. You can lay open all their limbs with a knife, cut their

stomach, shoot their feet, spray them with mildly toxic gas, hurl them

into a cloud of angry wasps and then roll them through a fireplace and

they'll still be good to go. Not just fit and unimpaired -- they won't

lose even a single Serious wound level, since they still have a Deadly

wound level left.

I don't have a solution for this. It's an intrinsic part of the system.

I do have some reasons to think it's acceptable, however. From the

dramatic perspective, when a character suffers a Deadly wound level, it

serves as the "cue" to the audience -- the players -- that the character

is now genuinely at risk.

For those more oriented on realistic results, you might wish to think of

the miraculous energy that pervades the Nobilis as "ablative vitality."

Their sheer natural health simply /transcends/ damage insufficient to

inflict a wound level. Like physical armor, a Nobilis' vitality must be

pierced before the Noble themselves can suffer impairment.

From my perspective, and hopefully the players', this wound system has

one significant virtue. The damage that characters suffer is "honest."

In a traditional death spiral, when a character takes a trivial wound

early on, it could mean the difference between life and death later. In

this system, a character cannot /suffer/ a trivial wound until they are

on their last legs -- when they know exactly how much closer to death it

brings them.

Consequentially, when the characters take that deadly wound dramatically

necessary to bring them close to death, they have time to react to that

information. This honesty /does/ reduce risk, but the person running the

game can compensate with increased danger. It also reduces /chaos/,

allowing both players and those running games greater control over the

game world.

R. Sean

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 Topics 	Author  	Date 	Latest Reply

 James and the Small Caps

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=81&t=81> (2) new 	Kibo 

08-20-2002 16:29  	02-10-2003 01:23 new

 Art <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=77&t=77> (1) new 	Lxndr 

04-26-2002 07:36  	04-26-2002 07:36 new

 The Original Nobilis Club

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=76&t=76> (3) new 	Bret Gillan 

04-17-2002 11:28  	03-17-2003 17:48 new

 Questions & Thoughts

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=64&t=64> (3) new 	Pyske 

03-20-2002 18:31  	05-01-2003 13:03 new

 Noble Buddhism?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=61&t=61> (9) new 	Tlaloc 

03-20-2002 12:17  	12-10-2004 01:20 new

 Noble Suicide <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=58&t=58> (9) new

Eric Christian Berg  	03-20-2002 07:43  	01-18-2005 16:27 new

 Art Notes <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=54&t=54> (4) new 	R.

Sean Borgstrom  	03-14-2002 16:31  	03-21-2002 03:44 new

 Ack...you just lost my sale

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=45&t=45> (10) new 	SteveD 

03-14-2002 04:06  	03-15-2002 06:29 new

 Onomastikon working URL

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=36&t=36> (4) new 	Jorge

Hernández  	03-06-2002 12:51  	08-20-2002 16:10 new

 Why do angels change names ?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=33&t=33> (10) new 	philippe

tromeur  	03-06-2002 10:13  	12-10-2004 01:34 new

 R. Sean, some examples?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=32&t=32> (3) new 	Arref 

03-05-2002 08:17  	03-13-2002 20:28 new

 Sounds great, BUT...

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=28&t=28> (2) new 	Kane 

02-27-2002 16:43  	02-27-2002 17:30 new

 Sort of backwards?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=21&t=21> (8) new 	Eric Finley 

02-20-2002 14:25  	02-28-2002 09:35 new

 Programmer nature slips out!

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=20&t=20> (2) new 	Sean

McCarthy  	02-20-2002 13:18  	02-21-2002 10:30 new

 Object Lesson Damage

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=15&t=15> (1) new 	Darren

Miguez  	02-13-2002 12:45  	02-13-2002 12:45 new

 How about this?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=12&t=12> (2) new 	Kristian

Lund  	02-13-2002 11:30  	02-14-2002 01:17 new

 Now, this was strange!

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=9&t=9> (7) new 	access.denied 

02-13-2002 07:44  	02-16-2002 21:44 new

 Briefs on the other two?

<http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=5&t=5> (5) new 	Eric Finley 

01-31-2002 18:39  	02-13-2002 10:36 new

 Forum now works <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=4&t=4> (1) new

Sandy Antunes  	01-31-2002 17:36  	01-31-2002 17:36 new

 limited series <http://www.rpg.net/pf/read.php?f=88&i=1&t=1> (2) new

Sandy Antunes  	01-21-2002 17:41  	01-31-2002 17:36 new

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<http://www.rpg.net/pf/list.php?f=88&t=1&a=2&> 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

    * Editing, Development, and Production

      </news+reviews/columns/wind27mar02.html>

      March 27, 2002

    * Affiliations </news+reviews/columns/wind20mar02.html>

      March 20, 2002

    * How to be a Hollyhock God </news+reviews/columns/wind13mar02.html>

      March 13, 2002

    * Naming Conventions </news+reviews/columns/wind06mar02.html>

      March 6, 2002

    * Art Notes </news+reviews/columns/wind27feb02.html>

      February 27, 2002

    * Dynamic Nobilis </news+reviews/columns/wind20feb02.html>

      February 20, 2002

    * Systems Change </news+reviews/columns/wind13feb02.html>

      February 13, 2002

    * Treachery </news+reviews/columns/wind06feb02.html>

      February 6, 2002

    * The Emperor to Come </news+reviews/columns/wind31jan02.html>

      January 31, 2002

    * The Changing of the Guard </news+reviews/columns/wind21jan02.html>

      January 21, 2002 

      Other columns </news+reviews/columns.html> at RPGnet

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