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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


      What do you think? <http://www.rpg.net/pf/list.php?f=88>

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

    * 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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