Tabletop Thought

Cooperative Storytelling
Although "Roleplaying Game" is the standard moniker, the game isn't about competitive acting. The game is a means to write an entertaining story together, to live the drama, action, comedy, and tragedy of an adventure as it unfolds. Each player should arrive with ideas and leave surprised. The other players with their own ideas, and an element of random chance, are why one plays the game instead of writing a book.

The game's rules are what make it all possible. Decisions must be made even if there were no random element, and impartial rules on how they're made require unbiased parties. In this section, I'll share some universal ground rules I've learned over the years that help everyone enjoy their tabletop experience.

All players are equal. To play a cooperative storytelling game, the first thing everyone needs to agree on is who's in control of what. Much of the time, several players each control one character, and the last player (often called the Game Master, or GM) controls everything else. Some systems prompt players to come up with additional characters relevant to their first, as part of their first character's backstory. Some players create world elements like their character's hometown.

The most important thing to remember is this: All players are equal. If a player creates a character for backstory purposes, that character belongs to that player. If a player is put in charge of creating a character's hometown, it belongs to that player. The creator can welcome help and ideas, but they don't have to. The GM has no special privileges; everyone is GM of their creations. To emphasize this in my own circles, I say "Party Characters" and "Non-Party Characters" instead of "Player Characters" and "Non-Player Characters"; same acronyms, but a more appropriate attitude for cooperative storytelling.

If one player (such as the GM) wants a certain narrative, such as a family member getting kidnapped or a hometown pillaged, and the creator of that character/settlement doesn't want it, the two settle their dispute the same way they handle any other encounter. If one player is making these decisions unilaterally, nobody is playing the game. Turning the camera to side-encounters like these make stories richer and heightens emotional investment in the supporting cast. Experiencing the event firsthand, the slim hope of escape thwarted by stacked (but not impossible) odds, is far more compelling than a summary.

The GM should treat the encounter like any other. A Big Bad Evil Villain should never use their own overwhelming power to run simple errands; that's what minions are for. The BBEV has an image to uphold; for every perceived notch above an appropriate encounter they send, the more they look weak, diffident, and ill-prioritized. Even if they do tell a powerful minion to take care of a task, that minion might send a lower-ranked minion for the same reasons. Assuming the side-characters aren't facing multiple encounters in a day, the encounter can be more challenging than normal, especially if they have once-per-day or expendable resources to nova with.

Facilitate, don't dictate. Cooperative storytelling games are improv, and the first rule of improv is "Yes, and..." Never, ever negate a player's actions or intent. Respond to them? Absolutely. But never negate.

There is no such thing as "derailing" the plot, because the plot is not pre-written. Cooperative storytelling is half discovering where the story goes, and half experiencing the journey there.

Do not tell players how to build their characters, unless it is a requirement for the setting/story (a low-magic world, all-dwarf party for plot hook purposes, etc), and even then there should be leeway (just one halfling can't hurt). Players will build the character they want to play, get inspired by the ways they find to do it, and get more invested the harder they work on it. If it doesn't turn out how they want, they can learn from it and try again next time. The liberal application of creativity (and homebrew adjustments) is far better than hindering the player's contribution to the story.

There are many different kinds of player, who play for different reasons. Think of the party not in terms of power level, but as rock, paper, and scissors; everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and you should rotate encounters between the things each character is strong against. It is extremely satisfying playing a paladin against undead, and extremely disheartening be the rogue who can't sneak-attack them; each encounter after that lessens the thrill but compounds the sorrow.

Combat Player made a single-target specialist? Throw something big at them, with minions for the other players. Combat Player made an area-spell specialist? Throw something big at the rest of the party, with minions for that player. Whatever you do, don't play rocket tag with bigger and bigger baddies with better and better defenses; that only makes Combat Player frustrated that they aren't getting their power fantasy, and the rest of the party frustrated that they can't do anything at all.

Social Player keeps chatting with NPCs? Give them chances to contribute to the party's goals through character interaction. Every time they strike up a conversation, it's an opportunity to let slip a plot hook, tactical information about the party's foes, or foreshadowing for future story elements. You don't have to nudge Social Player into asking the right questions; reward the fact that they form social bonds with NPCs by making those NPCs friendly and helpful. If done right, this gives Social Player a unique way to contribute and rewards the other party members for their patience.

Crafter Player wants to break wealth-by-level? Instead of reducing the wealth they get to counteract this, have wealth-appropriate encounters instead of level-appropriate ones. Crafter gets to do what they wanted, and after fending off foes they couldn't normally face, the party will be grateful to them.

Minion Master wants a hundred zombies? Instead of saying "no" to avoid slowing combat to a crawl, cobble together a "zombie horde" creature that works like a swarm, reducing the number of rolls without taking away their minions. Instead of culling the horde by giving more enemies area effects, throw traps at the party Minion Master can spring with fodder, so they can feel useful and the party can feel thankful.

New Player thought an orc multiclassing into cleric-bard-wizard and specialized in two-weapon fighting was a cool idea? Oh look, the party found a pair of hand axes that have a +8 enhancement bonus when both are held by an orc; what are the odds?

Horny Bard wants to roll seduction all the time? Before their very first roll, declare a hard rule: Adult content happens off-screen, no exceptions. Describing such acts around anyone who doesn't want to hear them constitutes abuse. Socially excluding people who don't consent to hearing the description constitutes abuse. Shaming someone for wanting to roll seduction constitutes abuse. Allowing adult acts off-screen, but keeping the table PG-13, is the only ethical way forward. Declaring this a hard rule sets the Bard's expectations where they need to be, and eases the minds everyone else when the Bard starts wiggling their eyebrows at an NPC. If the players involved what to roleplay the scene, it cannot be during the regularly-scheduled game time.

Backstory is optional. For some players, writing their character's story is the reason they're playing a cooperative storytelling game... Go figure. It's the players with a massive backstory and definite ideas about who/what/how their character is you should be worried about, because they might be more interested in writing their own book than cooperating.

Imagine a player shows up as a prince in exile, whose uncle secretly framed him for the murder of his father to steal the throne, and now he's off with a group of misfits who befriended him at the low point of his life. Great! The character is free to adventurer with no particular aim, no hooks pulling them away from the story everyone else is playing, and the GM has ammo in their plot gun to use at an appropriate time.

Now imagine that character had already learned of their uncle's treachery, and seeks to save their kingdom. By adding just one more step along the Hamlet/Lion King/Prince of Persia path, there's less for every player at the table. The party's priorities between backstory plots and GM hooks becomes a source of conflict, and someone always ends the day feeling like the last pick in gym class.

The Takeaway: You do not need a backstory, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise; not the GM, not the game system. Your backstory can help the GM include story elements relevant to your character, but don't make a backstory that would prevent you from biting unrelated plot hooks.

Never force a player to act in-character or out-of-character. Just as the fighter's attack rolls aren't based on their player's martial prowess, and the wizard's spellcasting isn't based on their player's arcane knowledge, so too is the bard exempt from real-world articulation prerequisites. The player decides how their characters act, the dice determine how successful they are, and everything else is gravy. Any real-world modifiers to in-game rolls punishes players for making a character who isn't identical to them, aka roleplaying.

Do not use "Rule of Cool", where a player who narrates their character's actions well gets benefits. To the players who aren't great storytellers, it feels like being penalized. Such rules also slow down gameplay while everyone exhausts their imaginations on the 5th new creative way to swing a sword, and the numbing tedium of attempts makes it ever less likely for any to inspire that sense of awe the rule was made to reward. Rule of Cool is a self-defeating negative feedback loop that forces the GM to subjectively judge their fellow players until the whole thing inevitably gets phased out, after making socially anxious players feel even less welcome at the table.

Minimize meta-control. When I first saw systems that let players change world elements at the table, I was hyped. Coming up with contacts and organizations on the fly, or twisting fate itself with really good rolls, opened up all sorts of possibilities. Sadly, it shatters the immersion. Everyone becomes a part-time GM, constantly jumping in and out of their characters' shoes, inhibiting the actual roleplay and actively pushing players into a more metagame mindset. Sure, the character stuck on an island could craft a boat over time. Or, they could keep rolling to search for resources and use an eventual critical success to find an abandoned rowboat. The GM says that's unreasonable? Now your tabletop game is a debate club until the GM puts their foot down. Another negative feedback loop, this time rewarding metagamers and alienating roleplayers.

Thou shalt not punish rolling. Critical fumble rules are a critical failure. A failed roll often has the consequence of negating a player's turn, if not something more dire already. Adding injury to insult with fumble rules punishes players for rolling dice. In Pathfinder 2e, attempting to grapple and rolling poorly can knock you prone. You know what this completely unnecessary rule does? Makes no one want to grapple, even if they're reasonably good at it. For a system that removed attacks of opportunity to make combat more versatile and interesting, they sure shot themselves in the foot by making combat maneuvers double-edged swords.

The main problem with these mechanics is that they discourage rolling, and thus taking an active role, and thus contributing to the story. PF2 also has an increased chance to fumble on anything tougher than a 50-50 chance, which discourages trying anything new, inhibiting both character growth and player growth.

Another problem with fumbles is that they often makes no in-world sense, degrading immersion. A novice with a sword has a 5% chance of stabbing themself with every sword swing? The god of swordsmanship also has a 5% chance? It's absurd, and even if it wasn't it's still bad game design. Even automatic failures are nonsense, the idea that someone is so well-trained and spent a lifetime perfecting their trade that they could succeed on a natural 1, but still fail even trivial tasks 5% of the time.

Always foreshadow; never retcon. Any consequence, no matter how dire, is okay if the player chose the risk. If the players choose to fight a high-level spellcaster, that Disintegrate or Banshee's Wail is completely justified, and they should have come prepared for it. If a player sends their low-level tank into the middle of several enemies, they deserve the eventual crit that crushes both their defenses and their hubris. Only two things are required to be fair: Knowing the risk, and the freedom to opt out. If the players aren't making an informed choice, you may as well replace them with dice. If the players aren't free to choose another reasonable option, you may as well write a book instead. If you retcon what you don't like, you may as well skip the dice and the book.

Foreshadowing can be done any number of ways. For one, the GM can just tell the players directly; separation of player-knowledge and character-knowledge is already a bare minimum needed to play. For more subtle methods, there could be a wanted poster for local bandits, or an obvious trap at the beginning of a trap-filled dungeon. Set players' expectations however you can.

In lieu of retconning, do anything, anything that moves the story forward instead of backward. Rocks fall, TPK? Instead, rocks fall, party is divided (and can start singing "Secret Tunnel"); determine damage/death and move on. So long as the party got where they are from informed choices, the world must act appropriately to those choices or else the choices don't matter.

When writing a system, it's fine to have save-or-die effects and other extreme dangers. Players getting save-or-die effects doesn't matter, since non-party characters don't care about what's fair, and the GM succeeds when the party-characters succeed. GMs getting save-or-die effects doesn't matter, since they already have them whether or not the system says so. Since it doesn't matter, wander the realm of possibilities freely, and give players the tools to live whatever fantasy of utter destruction they wish.

Never introduce what you aren't willing to lose. If you create a character, put it into the world, and introduce it to the story, be prepared to lose it. It has hit points now. It has defenses. These things are finite; they obey the rules of the game.

If you give the character impenetrable plot-armor or otherwise inappropriate power, you degrade the other players' contribution to the story, degrade their faith in you, and degrade the character itself. The character is who the character is, the world is what the world is, and if you twist and warp either one to get a more desirable outcome than the other players, dice, and game system say, you're defiling the very thing you wish to save.

If it helps, think of the story as an alternate universe. The character you cherish remains intact, unperturbed, somewhere else, untouchable by the other players at your table. In this one instance, this singular timeline among infinite, something bad happens. And that's okay.

Dice
Dice are the second most important part of a tabletop RPG, after the players. Dice are a shortcut to represent the infinite complexity of the universe, rolled against the probability of a given result. Whenever a character does anything, great or small, you should be able to relate it back to a die roll. Sitting up in bed? Roll a die, and if you get higher than negative four, you succeed. Things like that don't matter, until they do; being sick, dizzy, drugged, and/or cursed might cause you to fail even simple tasks at least some of the time, and the best way to keep your world's internal logic from disintegrating is to make sure everything is built on the same foundation.

The Chance Roll: 1d20 vs Difficulty. The basic building block of any system is the chance roll, simply rolling the odds of success or failure. This equation has two sides: How well the character does, and how well they must do to succeed. The player rolls the dice, applying any modifiers that affect their character, and the GM sets a difficulty class (DC), applying any modifiers that make it easier or harder. If the roll's modified result meets or exceeds the modified difficulty, the character succeeds. This straightforward model is appropriate for most every situation, and is the simplest to improvise with.

Because the chance roll is the most common, it's best to keep it simple and consistent, so the players can keep the dice they need at the ready. You want three things for your typical chance roll: Intuitive odds, easy math, and diverse possibility.

Intuitive odds are important because it helps players make informed decisions, the crux of cooperative storytelling. With a d20, anyone raised with base 10 math can figure the odds in seconds. With 3d6, which has the same average, you're messing with maths not meant for mortal minds. Dice divisible by 2 or 5 are simplest, while 3 is more complicated, and multiple dice throw intuition out the window.

For easy math, one numbered die tells you its result right on the die, without adding numbers, counting pips, or - RNGsus forbid - translating non-numeric symbols. A system can size-up any die easily; a d4 system that uses +1 modifiers is the same as a d8 system of +2s or a d12 system of +3s. The varied results make rolling more interesting, even if each result is mechanically identical to two or three others. At the designer's discretion, larger dice can be used with smaller modifiers to increase the granularity and depth of the system. Because sizing up gives more design freedom without any inherent complexity, d20, d12, and d8 are the only chance dice worth considering.

To look at possibilities, let's once again compare 1d20 with 3d6: 1d20 odds are evenly distributed, while 3d6 rolls within 9-12 about half the time. Attempting anything difficult almost guarantees failure, and attempting anything easy almost guarantees success. A bell curve of results locks players into the mechanics of their character, punishing anyone who dares to try new things or fight anyone they can't bully. You want outlying possibilities, a chance to do something against the odds, to be as likely as possible. You want an epic story of ups and downs, not a monotone heart rate monitor.

In every category, using multiple dice is bad. In every category, 1d20 is on top.

The Quantity Roll: Bell Curve. Quantity rolls are just about the opposite of chance rolls. If you're at the point of rolling quantity, the decisions have already been weighed and made, so the odds need not be intuitive. While easy math is still nice, quantity rolls are less common than chance rolls, and usually don't have as much impact on the decisions the next player needs to make, so time spent tabulating doesn't cut into total playtime as much. As for possibilities, you actually want the opposite of chance rolls: Predictability.

The human mind weights quantity in multiples: 2 is twice as good as 1, 4 is twice as good as 2, etc. If you rolled a d20 for quantity, the worst result is over 10x worse than average, while the best result is less than 2x better. This, combined with loss aversion, is a perfect recipe for frustration and negative reinforcement that saps a player's ability to contribute to the story. While it's impossible to reverse or negate this drawback without removing quantity rolls entirely, it can be heavily mitigated by using many smaller dice. Using 3d6 instead of 1d20, the worst result is less than 4x worse than average, while the best remains nearly 2x better, and these extremes become much rarer than the 9s-12s that show up half the time.

Quantity predictability is also important when weighing options. Given the choice between dealing 1d20 damage or giving the target a set penalty, logarithmic thinking and loss aversion will make low damage rolls feel extra punishing, as the player is likely to feel they made the wrong choice. Predictable damage can be weighed against to other options more easily, so the player can make more informed choices. Again, intuitive odds don't matter; getting something in the ballpark of average is good enough.

You can't really put a blanket statement on which quantity dice are best, because unlike chance rolls you need different dice for different situations. However, a few notes: d6s are widely available in large quantities. There's no reason quantity dice have to all be the same. Large single dice feel high-risk-high-reward, like a barbarian swinging a massive axe, while multiple smaller dice feel more measured and reliable, like a well-trained swordsman balancing offense and defense.

PCs roll as much as feasible. When one character is rolling against another, the roller determines whether something good happens or nothing happens, and the rolled-against gets to be told whether nothing happens or something bad happens. The former is an active role with net-positive results, while the latter is a passive role with net-negative results. You want party-character players to be an active role as much as possible, and you want them to have as positive an experience as possible. Therefore, they should roll as much as possible.

While many systems have a set system on who rolls what in every scenario, such as the d20 System's "attacker rolls against armor, defender rolls against spell", this doesn't need to be the case. A caster could roll for how well they perform or aim the spell, and a defender could roll to resist or dodge the spell; deciding which has no objective answer, so choose whichever is best for the party-character players. This not only makes the game more engaging on the player's turn, but on enemy turns as they actively dodge and resist incoming attacks. This also increases the player's sense of agency, since it's always their actions that decide the outcome, instead of things happening to them.

The player always rolling gives them an opportunity to use their last-second abilities, without the GM needing to pause and ask if anyone has a response every time a minion makes an attack during an already lengthy combat. Personally, I've witnessed the GM blurt out that an enemy attack succeeds when I was specifically planning to respond to the attempt all too often, which puts me in the awkward position of needing to rewind so I can preempt the otherwise guaranteed damage with an insightful and almost prescient plan I had cleverly calculated all along (I swear!).

Another benefit is that since the players are doing more rolling and math themselves, the GM has more time for other things. The GM could have enemies that take their turns in a row declare attacks against multiple players to speed things up, as each player can work simultaneously. Don't worry about "But the first player wouldn't know who's getting attacked after when they use their reaction!"; the entire initiative order happens in 6 in-world seconds, those attacks are supposed to happen much closer to simultaneously than the turn order implies, and the last would be raising their axe before the first brings theirs down.

Player Acting Last (PAL): Whenever a chance roll is needed, the last PC to act gets the roll. With a d20, PCs roll d20+attack against NPC's 10+defense, and also roll d20+defense to dodge an NPC's 10+attack (if not a d20, use the average rounded down for NPCs). If two PCs are rolling against each other, the defender always rolls because they're the Player Acting Last.

The PAL rule subtly converts "roller win ties" into "player win ties"; the party-characters are the heroes after all, and that slight nudge of destiny is what makes a hero in the first place. PvP combat becomes less lethal and more dramatic, because the defender wins ties. You can also get rid of "automatically succeed against willing targets" exceptions in favor of "Characters can choose to fail." Since the defender is the one rolling, you simply declare your intent and they decide if they let it happen or attempt to stop it. One shortcoming of the d20 System is that, because you can't cast spells without a legal target and some spells only work against willing creatures, you automatically divine a creature's willingness before casting the spell. What's more, it decreases drama; if the caster can't divine willingness and they cast a spell an ally doesn't necessarily want, that ally now gets the meaningful choice of whether to accept the spell or waste the resource, and might be affected regardless. If any session ends with a player saying "Do NOT turn me into a minotaur again" it was probably an interesting session.

The one time you always want the GM to roll is when the player shouldn't know if they failed; "roll perception" is about the most conspicuous and pace-killing phrase a GM can say short of "rocks fall; TPK". If nobody sees anything, some players will strain their brain and credibility coming up with schemes to find whatever they shouldn't know they didn't see. It's not their fault; it's a natural response to a potential threat. It's the game system's job to avoid these situations, so the GM should roll stealth rather than players rolling perception, roll defense against a player's attack if the opponent is invisible (or not in the attacked square), etc... Any situation where a failure would result in a lack of feedback.

Choose appropriate modifiers. Flat modifiers such as +1 are the most common way to reach new heights and DCs, and a prerequisite for meaningful advancement. If using a level system, level is meaningless without getting at least one of these to something the player chooses. The +1 is what the character has been working toward, training for, and level is merely the marker saying they've gotten another batch of +1s. Flat modifiers are also for whenever the character can potentially do better than normal, or couldn't no matter how many times they tried. The right tool for the job, feeling sick, magical enhancement, or terrible working conditions should all apply flat modifiers in most cases.

The greatest strength of advantage/disadvantage is that the result is never outside a creature's normal ability. This type of modifier can curb the highest highs of optimization while also cutting down on how much math is done at the table. Advantage is best used for significant boons, such as another character spending their turn helping, or attaining high levels of mastery. Many of the 3e abilities that let you always take 10 on a roll would better represent their mastery as an advantage. Disadvantage is simply the reverse of an advantage in some cases, though since no one gains them through prolonged progress, disadvantage should mostly be relegated to a single roll or potent high-level curses.

Rerolls are a powerful thing, and should mainly deal with luck, fate, and divine intervention. The unique strength of this modifier is to only expend a limited resource after knowing you need it, the ace up your sleeve for critical moments. It also has the property of becoming more useful the less the player has. If they get 1 reroll per day, they'll be tossing it out at the first opportune moment. If the GM hands them an extremely rare single-use item of 1 reroll, they'll be saving that sucker for the most devastating turn of events, such as their final failed save against death, or against the big villain's critical hit with a scythe. With this in mind, rerolls can be implemented in several ways simultaneously in a system. PF2's Halfling Luck feat is 1 reroll of a failed check/save per day, which is a perfect ability for characters who stumble their way through the world without trouble by applying to daily survival checks and saves against harsh environments. Another way could be a lunar ritual for certain druids, granting 1 reroll that only replenishes each full moon. A character with both of these will still use their daily reroll willy-nilly, but that precious lunar guidance is kept in their back pocket for the real threats.

Adding another die to the roll, such as a d6 to a d20, is a rare and strange mechanic. Its random nature makes it ill-suited to represent training or personal skill and a better fit for random or indirect circumstances. As such, these are a good tool for the narrative, and the GM should keep an eye on opportunities to explain them. A lock's pin might be jammed open already, meaning someone broke in before the party, and could still be there. A smith's ore might be particularly pure, making wherever it came from valuable knowledge. That bonus to diplomacy might be because the target is an old war buddy the roller didn't recognize. The library happens to have the exact book needed for a player's research, and might have other useful secrets or plot hooks they weren't looking for. Definitely don't do this every time, but if that extra die turned a failure into a success, it might be special. If adding the die can be done after seeing the roll, it functions similar to a reroll that's always better, except it can't reverse really bad rolls.

Skills
After players and dice, the third pillar of a tabletop RPG is the character's affinity for different actions. RPGs are by definition a marriage of roleplay and mechanics, and an RPG without numerical advancement is equivalent to a book without character development.

Skill points, not proficiency. One mistake I've seen is when a skill system only measures "trained" or "untrained", without any sort of point allocation; this is a devastating blow to player contribution. All trained skills force the assumption that your character is practicing these, always, regardless of rhyme or reason, for the rest of their life, never abandoning old interests for new ones. Training becomes so powerful that the system can't let characters branch out, heavily restricting any impact the narrative might have on the character. This also incentivizes minmaxing, since you're stuck in the rut you carve at level 1.

Example: A character gets ambushed while traveling. They aren't trained in riding, but use a horse for long distances. The situation is too immediate and dangerous for them to dismount, so they fight from atop their steed. Afterwards, the player decides mounted combat is fun, and that this could be an interesting character development. In the d20 System, the next time they level up they can choose how many points they devote to it: Enough to get a handle on the basics, enough to become fairly competent, or as much as they can (they might need more training/levels). In D&D 5e's proficiency system, the character would have to spend an entire level multiclassing into bard/ranger/rogue, or wait up to 4 levels and spend a precious feat on it, all of which greatly change the entire character and give the player training in other skills regardless of narrative. In either case, they immediately become just as proficient as with the skills they've spent their entire lives practicing.

The character belongs to the player. The player decides how their character reacts to the world the GM sets, how their character spends their time, and what lessons their character learns. This is why a skill point system, giving the player a currency to spend on whatever skills they want, is the only way to properly handle skills in a tabletop game.

Active must scale faster than passive. Don't design a system where everyone adds their level (or a fraction of it) to everything.

When attack and defense add the same level-fraction, level-appropriate creatures do not change. However, anything less powerful than you becomes negligible, and anything more powerful becomes insurmountable. The higher the fraction, the less leeway. Whether negligible or insurmountable, both contribute nothing to narrative or engagement, hindering the roleplay and the game.

You need a system where it's easier and easier to land a hit, but hits do proportionally less and less. Scaling attack against a static number to hit, but with more hit points each level, was the elegant solution the d20 System used. However, this makes armor less relevant over time as hits get closer to guaranteed. d20 Modern classes had a scaling armor bonus, which delays this eventuality. Personally, I like the "armor as damage reduction" variant from the 3e Unearthed Arcana, where you halve the armor bonus but grant a similar amount of damage reduction, ensuring that armor stays relevant at all levels.

If an attack has a non-damaging effect, scaling attack versus static defense and more hit points doesn't really work. This is a big issue in D&D 5e, where players have 4 untrained defenses against trained spells that also use the character's primary attribute; the higher your level, the higher the incentive for opponents to attack one of your four level-1-commoner defenses instead of the two that scale. For things you can't solve with hit points, scaling defenses are appropriate, though some should scale faster than others depending on the type of character, lest everyone turn to homogenized unflavored yogurt.

Effects that don't scale are wonderful, such as summoning a fog cloud. Impaired vision at level 1 can be just as relevant at level 10, with no need to bother with attack, defense, or the scaling of either.

Ability Scores
Although not required, ability scores greatly reduce the complexity of a system while increasing depth. Representing a character's most basic attributes, ability scores define a character more intuitively than their skill points, and create shortcuts for many possible mechanics. In the d20 System, ability scores are the difference between "-2 dexterity" and "-1 to ranged attacks, AC, reflex, balance, escape artist, fly, hide, jump, move silently, ride, sleight of hand, tumble, and use rope, plus other things introduced in later books that must then reference every effect in the game that gives this penalty". "-2 dexterity" gets easier to use through intuition, deduction, and experience, at worst looking at your character sheet to see what's affected. The other mess relies completely on rote memory, sending players pouring through the rulebook every time they're uncertain of what a particular condition affects.

Actions
There are some things every character should be able to do, and making sure they can is a good way to test the game's design.

Nothing. One of the most basic yet overlooked actions is... nothing. Beyond the passage of time, there should never be a penalty for simply not acting until you feel like it. A system that only lets you take your turn or pass it makes you sign a blank check that the character will not act for 1 entire round; that's not "nothing", it's "something bad". Reversely, a system that lets players delay their turn but not change the turn order allows them to save up a turn, then take two in a row to pull combos with no chance to respond.

Solution: Let characters lower themselves on the turn order.

- Whenever a character's turn would begin, that character may choose to delay their turn, temporarily skipping it.

- During any turn, a character who delayed their last turn may choose to take their turn next. When the current turn ends, they move their turn in the turn order and change their initiative to match the ending turn's. If multiple characters with delayed turns attempt this in the same turn, only the one with the highest initiative succeeds; the rest must wait until their next chance.

Consequences:

- Because turn order cannot reasonably be kept static throughout an encounter, no effect can rely on the beginnings or ends of turns to track time. All non-instant effects must have their own place in the turn order, just after the initiative of the character who created it. If effects persists after an encounter ends, their turn order remains the same, but their initiatives become 0.

- Because the system must support fluid turn orders, the door is opened for other effects that change initiative results. An effect that slows, stuns, or hampers movement might lower the target's initiative result as a side effect. Although delaying a turn can technically increase initiative result, the character always acts more slowly because of it.

- Effects that spend initiative as a currency are possible, since no matter the actual number it always makes the character slower. However, going into negatives indefinitely counters the drawback, so they shouldn't allow the character to go into initiative debt; once the character is at the bottom of the turn order, they can simply delay until after the character at the top, and continue their spending with the same repercussions as before.

Things they can do. TL;DR: "In an encounter," "while traveling," and similar distinctions are (and should remain) meaningless.

If a character can do something, they can do it.

Some games disagree with this. Some games have special actions that only work during encounters. I do see the appeal; an ability that heals you when you hit a target could really cool for in-combat sustainability, but really annoying to balance around if they could jab themself with a needle all day to keep their hit points full. However, to make any such distinction, you have to define it.

"Initiative has been rolled." This is the saddest attempt I've seen at distinguishing encounters from the rest of the day, because it forgets a basic assumption of every RPG: Things happen elsewhere, in an order. You know, space, time, and causality. They exist. Many things happen during what the game considers "1 round", and they happen everywhere. These things do not always happen simultaneously; one person asking a question does not need to wait 1 round to hear the answer, then another round to react to the answer. Everything has an initiative order, at all times, across every plane of existence. However, the game lets you hand-wave the specifics when they don't matter, and check to see how they've changed once they do. Initiative is never not rolled, you just don't always care what it is, nor do you want to deal with thousands of delayed turns per day.

"In a life-threatening situation," "fighting dangerous opponents," etc. The GM is not in charge of defining what an opponent is for characters they don't control, because the character thinks however their controller says they do. A party member could be an opponent you can't kill yet because ulterior motives take priority. "Yourself" can be an opponent in the same way. Maybe you hate butterflies. Moving past that, we're left with establishing degrees of danger. What's the threshold? Anything that can deal 1 damage under perfect circumstances is technically life-threatening, so that's out. Challenge rating? Tucker's Kobolds is a perfect example of how a concrete CR system is impossible to achieve; disadvantageous terrain, less-than-perfect information, or a string of bad rolls can turn a cake-walk into a near-death experience. There is no way to determine how dangerous an encounter is until it ends, after the question "Can I take this action?" needs to be resolved.

"While traveling," "while exploring," etc. As an example, Pathfinder 2 has "exploration mode", which lets you pick an activity and do only that for large chunks of time. There's an activity to regularly use Detect Magic to scan your surroundings, but not one for Produce Flame if you happen to be a pyrophiliac. "Exploration mode" is exactly as meaningless as "initiative has been rolled", because looking through a macro lens does not change what details exist. In-game effects should never care what the player is doing, whether they're taking a thousand turns or hand-waving an hour or two. The spell Show the Way divines the path ahead so you can avoid hazards and wrong turns, but only during exploration mode. At any point, the player should be able to zoom down to the micro level and make the conscious decision whether or not to avoid that camp of bandits they have the drop on. Yes, keep the rules for hand-waving hours of slightly-faster travel; however, never, ever design a tabletop RPG with an "exploration mode" that gives mechanical differences.

The best way I've seen to limit what a character can do is to define periods of rest. Define a short rest as 1-5 minutes of non-strenuous activity, change "Once per encounter" to "Once per short rest", and presto, an intuitive and uncomplicated way to limit some cool ability. Not long enough? Medium rest 1 hour, long rest 8 hours, or whatever you want. You can mess around with "non-strenuous activity" or whatever you call it by whitelisting/blacklisting actions.

Be simultaneous. Characters should not be forced to go one after the other if on the same side. For example, two rogues want to do a two-pronged flanking attack. One delays their turn so no one acts between them. They should both be able to move, then both make an attack. If the system forces them to go separately, the first one isn't flanking.

The d20 System lets characters ready an action, where the first rogue moves and readies an attack, then the second moves into flanking position, triggering the readied attack, then also attacks. This mostly solves the problem, except if the second rogue doesn't get into position, the first loses their attack.

The simplest way to cover all possible scenarios: If a character delays their turn, and declares their turn is next, the current turn's character can let them take actions during their turn.

This way, the character who goes first has to opt into it, the player who goes second can opt out of it, and each time this happens they switch. This helps manage companions and familiars, as forcing them to go before or after the player really messes up mounted combat and other teamwork tactics that should reasonably work.

Speaking of companions, there's no reason a companion with quick reflexes shouldn't be able to have quick reflexes. It's definitely more convenient to have them take their turns at the same time, but with the above rule for delaying, it's easy for the player to opt for that without making it a hard rule. This means thinking ahead and giving a companion standing orders can be advantageous, as it should be.

Specific Systems
Here are some thoughts on specific systems, and the consequences of their mechanics.

- Blades in the Dark

- Pathfinder 2

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