“Soulsborne” Combat System

 A year of lockdowns have meant fewer games and so less game stuff to post here. Couple that with ~depression~ and a decent amount of Actual Work to keep my gamebrain occupied (currently in progress: Journeylands, various top-secret Mothership things and a real stupid and very fun project with acid lich) and the Guide has kind of stopped being what it once was - a public notebook for me to expunge fun lil game thoughts, just in case they’re useful for anyone else.

This blog was my way into the hobby and while I have a tendency to downplay its importance just like everything else I do, it’s been a valuable constant in my life for several years now. I appreciate all you folks who read regularly, anyone who stops by on occasion, and especially folks who’ve had fun playing games with some of the things I’ve posted here.

I guess my point is I’ve been feeling appreciative of this place lately and wanted to shake off the cobwebs a bit!

So here’s a thing I’ve been playing with for a while now.

It’s been a rough concept for a while, first put into action in Jack Rabbit Jam: Battle Roulette, my overambitious attempt at a KS project for my board game project Paradice Arcade. So yeah, nobody saw it lol

I’m using versions in DEADLINE and Journeylands, but those are more meta-structural things, basic trackers that don’t really get into the various permutations of what the mechanic can do.

It started as a combat system and I think that’s where it shines! Or as both in conjunction.

(I made it clear these were just notes, right? A work in progress kind of thing? Ok good)

Ok, so. Imagine if you will a clock with 13 hours. Place a token on 13. Each time you roll to resolve a combat action, move the token round clockwise equal to the result of the roll. When you hit or pass 13, the enemy takes their turn. Repeat until victory or death.

That’s the basic gist - again, if you’ve read DEADLINE you already know as much. But I’ve been extrapolating this thing in all kinds of different ways, and that’s where the fun is for me.

So I guess let’s talk through the implications of this thing and how it can be turned into a “soulsborne” type combat minigame.

(“Soulsborne” video games involve tense combats where every movement is sluggish and deliberate. You have to learn to feel the weight of your various action options, read an opponent’s moves and try to time your attacks, counters, dodges, item uses etc. See this previous post on Monster Hunter.)

Before we begin, assumptions: This is a combat minigame, so using it means combat should be fun and at least somewhat viable in your game. So, not applicable to the kinds of adventure games I often make. Although the adventure game format surrounding this offers tactical infinity, things within combat will be a little more boardgamey and strict. Fighting becomes its own thing with its own rules rather than just another outcome to standard play - think games like 5th Edition with their “roll for initiative” demarcation of play states.

(Also, I don’t have a name for this yet? “Clocks” already mean a thing so I don’t want to call it something confusing. Maybe I just need to build a whole game and name that instead.)

Ok so first implication - rolling low is good. Moving the token 1 or 2 spaces leaves more space ahead of you on the track for more actions this turn.

I’m using 2d6 because this was a Paradice Arcade game first. All those games use 2d6 and a coin or 2 as tokens.

As it stands, there are a few types of roll which correspond to different actions (all names placeholders):

- “Heavy” rolls: 2d6, take the higher. Big, slow and deliberate moves like swinging your bastard sword or loading your longbow and taking aim. Avg 5-6, so that’s likely half your turn gone.

- “Light” rolls: 2d6 take the lower. Quick, light and simple actions. Releasing that arrow, a swift parry perhaps. Avg 1-2, barely make a dent in your turn most of the time.

- “Colossal” rolls (idk I literally came up with that name right now): 2d6. Huge, slow things that will almost certainly eat up most or all of your turn. Probably spells.

- just Rolls: 1d6. For miscellaneous or random actions. Using “an item”.

No maths or modifiers, natch. Though I’m not necessarily opposed to the odd +1.

So a turn might look like… notch an arrow (heavy roll, +5 on the clock), fire (light roll, +1=6), knock a second (heavy roll, +4), chicken out and don’t fire in case you pass 13 so dodge or something (quick roll, +3).

Every action will be tied into an item in the inventory (see? It’s practically a board game!). So your boots have an action to dodge, the “arrow” action is knock and aim, etc etc etc. And each demands a certain roll. You’d probably have a L and R hand, and only be able to use actions if the items were in hand, with another action to rummage through your inventory - quivers would make reaching for arrows a free action… You get where I’m going here. Boardgames.

So this is all bringing us to implication 2 -

“Striking 13”

(This is not the term for it, it’s already a term in GRAVEROBBERS for the blackjack mechanic. Damn, I kinda wish GRAVEROBBERS wasn’t a light adventure system so that I could wedge this thing in there, the whole clock/13 thing fits the vibe and numerology far too well. Maybe this’ll end up as a hack pamphlet for that system some day.)

Anyway. When you hit 13 on the money, you’re lucky - your turn just ends. Pontoon, blackjack, vingt-et-un. But if you pass over 13? That’s bad!

Firstly, whatever action you were taking that made you roll and pass 13 doesn’t happen. You’ve been interrupted by your opponent. Some special actions might change things - if you pass 13 with a “shield” or “dodge” action then it doesn’t get interrupted and instead blocks some enemy actions, perhaps.

Second, you’re now eating into your free space for next turn. If you roll way over and end up on 5, that means that once the opponent’s action resolves you’re starting on 5, not 13. So you only have half the space to advance before they go again.

(Hopefully the “timing” element is starting to become clearer at this point! And why I’ve dubbed it a soulsborne type system. You’ll be picking your actions and pushing your luck, doing things like deciding to do a quick dodge as your turn ends to limit how far over 13 you go. Or risking it all on a big roll, missing and leaving yourself vulnerable.)

Third, Overkill. That’s what I’m calling it for now anyway. And to explain that…

Monsters

I’ve lost nearly all patience for statblocks. A number or two in a MoSh module is about as much as my poor heart can take these days. I’d rather resolve enemies through basics of the system like saves and checks, and general play.

With that in mind, opponents in this system will still need something because everything’s so… boardgames. We’re getting fuzzy here because this is the freshest ink on the wip, but the general idea is that the number you end up on if you pass 13 allows badder enemy actions. That’s called the Overkill. Oh shit I passed 13 and landed on 2, that’s 2 overkill.

So a dragon might always attack on its turn, but on a 3+ Overkill it does fire breath. Or something.

This also means that this system is fairly viable for solo play. ALl my examples here have been about 1 character anyway, and it fits the soulsborne vibe. But I don’t think it’d be difficult to do a party-based fight here. Maybe everyone gets a “hand” on the “clock”, and all your Overkill adds together.

Is all that good? I don’t know.

Oh, the only other idea to mention is using another “hand” on the clock as an encounter roll, a bit like the Etrian Odyssey inspired indicator here.

Yet to Come

Where this leaves us is with questions about health and damage in this thing, and… I don’t have that sorted out yet. I’d like to bring everything back to the clock - maybe another hand tracks the flow of battle? I don’t want to use classic HP here, mainly because I just kinda decided not to but also I’d like something more dramatic and less gamey. I love HP as a mechanic but I don’t know that it fits here.

Well, I’m writing about all this because hopefully I’ll get to playtest it properly soon! Maybe?

the new A24 movie The Green Knight is finally coming out here next week, I’ve been hyped for this thing for literal years and have pretty much already decided I like it based on the first trailer. And Dev Patel.

Anyway I got the promotional RPG that A24 made back when the film was supposed to come out way back when. It’s in a green box made to look like the old D&D red box, and it’s an actual game with its own mechanics and ideas. Gonna go see the film with some peeps and then come home and play the game over a stein of mead or whatever the fuck

… And I think this “soulsborne” mechanic would fit really nicely as a “duel” mechanic in that game. Frequent Guide readers know my penchant for twisted fairytale pastoral stuff - mix that with the Arthurian legend stuff and some other old Celtic stories, some added Dark Souls vibes and I can totally see this mechanic sliding in nicely.

Dappled light over ruined stone in a forest clearing, facing down against what was once an ancient king and is now a terrible and melancholy beast, nothing but your sword and wits in hand… yeah.

Maybe the fusion will work - there’s no HP/damage in the Green Knight RPG, just an Honour/Dishonour sliding scale, maybe that’s the answer to the damage question. Maybe it’ll be a mess! I don’t know!

Anyway, it’s fun to make up dumb game things and play them with your friends. Being a Professional RPG Person is great and all, but at the end of the day this is a hobby, and there’s only one reason we should all be here - games with mates. Or solo. Playing, is the point.

Here’s to more silly entries in the Graverobber’s Guide, and more playtime to come.

Random Encounter Mechanics

 We all love random encounters (if you don’t, start here). But is the classic random encounter table still the best way to generate them?

Probably yes. But that won’t stop me from stealing some ideas from video games.

Random encounters are typically seen as a bit of an annoyance, or even an anachronism, in classic dungeon crawlers and JRPGs, interrupting players with a sudden combat screen. Contrary to the tried and true methods of tabletop though, there have been all kinds of advancements and new takes on how to deliver these encounters.

Let’s look at three games with their own takes and try and adapt those ideas for ttrpgs!

Pokemon

*deedleedleedleedleedleedleedleedl*

The most obvious way that Pokemon made its otherwise fairly typical JRPG encounters more forgiving on its younger target audience way by clearly delineating encounter zones. In the tall grass? Random encounters maybe! Not in the tall grass? No random encounters ever! And then proper wilderness places like caves and the open ocean have encounters everywhere.

Seems like a basic idea but it hasn’t been copied often. Not only does this mesh perfectly with the series’ themes of nature and urbanisation, but it allows for fun level design and leads to more engaging traversal in the overworld.

You can see that one path is overgrown and one is paved - it’s like a dungeon corridor, one fork emitting cold wind and one an eerie warmth. And there are still challenges on urbanised routes, just a different kind. Every new route is full of little decisions.

A couple of other things make the Pokemon approach come together. Firstly, the battle/capture system that is the games’ premise means you want encounters, at least some of the time. Even if you’d rather not fight right now, there’s always the curiosity of finding new monsters.

Also, you can negate encounters entirely with special Repel items. They don’t work if the enemy is way stronger than you, but you can go through most routes with a spritz or two of repel and just… not have to worry about the whole thing. The trade off is money, as these items are consumable and must be replenished.

How to implement?

- be clear to your players where and when they might have a random encounter (this is basic communication stuff really)

- make encounters appealing from the outside (everyone has treasure in this world? You can “catch” monsters in some way and add them to your squad?) Keep these rules consistent across all encounters.

- Offer an out. Some magic item that repels monsters in exchange for… money? A quest? HP/your soul…?

Etrian Odyssey

Pretty much the closest thing to an old-school computer dungeon crawler still out there, but not without its updates! Etrian Odyssey has a little indicator in the HUD that changes colour as you traverse its megadungeons. Green: you’re fine. Yellow: hmm. Red: encounter soon! (This has appeared in other games, like Legend of Dragoon).

You’ll never have a random encounter unless the indicator is red. It’s not just a simple clock ticking down though, the encounters are still a surprise each time - you can’t count steps until the next one.

Etrian Odyssey mixes this up by having its big boss monsters, FOEs, never appear in random encounters, instead being represented in the overworld.

Lots of JRPGs have gone the way of overworld encounters as a development of random battles, but FOEs are a mini game unto themselves - way too strong to fight when you first meet a new type, you instead have to study their movements across the map (the map you draw!) and avoid them outright.

And if that’s not OSR…

How to implement?

- Use an indicator system. Eg: Every dungeon turn, roll 1d6, keep all previous rolls in a line. As soon as any of them show doubles, have an encounter and reset the line afterwards.

- Differentiate your big, bad monsters. Remove them from the encounter table and represent them through environmental clues, omens… Talk up different ways to avoid them or at least track their whereabouts/ know when you’re in their lair. One big, unique beast that affects everything around it.

FANTASIAN

This one launched on Apple Arcade this year so you’d be forgiven if you haven’t played it. It uses a great new idea to govern its encounters - the Dimengeon is an in-universe device that warps them into a prison dimension for you to fight later. You only have to fight them when the Dimengeon is full, but you have to fight them all at once!

This not only lets you explore the game’s beautiful diorama overworlds without constant interruption, but also functions like Etrian Odyssey’s indicator by acting like a countdown to the big fight.

It also leverages the game’s battle system, which involves aiming attacks across a 2d plane - with more enemies, you can line them up like bowling pins and take out more with each attack. There are also power ups in the Dimengeon to help you out, but you have to hit them with those attacks to get em. Very fun.

How to implement?

- Something appropriate for your game’s world. I’d do like a lantern that can store ghosts, but risks unleashing them all at once if it breaks. It’s Ghostbusters. Maybe a push-your-luck, blackjack type system: draw a card each time you suck up a ghost, if you bust then all your ghosties break free. (If this one sounds like your jam, you’ll love my game GRAVEROBBERS btw, free download here.)

All of these methods involve making the structure behind your encounters more readable to your players and easier to deal and interact with! Encounters aren’t just punishment to throw at player characters, or distinct pockets of gameplay. They can be incorporated into your world and system on another level.

GRAVEROBBERS Bare Bones 1.0

 The Bare Bones of GRAVEROBBERS are now available!

Download them here for free.

This 1.0 release marks the first “finished” version of the game. Rules have been tweaked and finalised, structured with usable guidelines and laid out as a pamphlet for easy use on screens or printed out.

(Yes, I know I said 0.4 was next. I got carried away.)

Patch notes:

- we’re live! 1.0 means that while there may well be updates and adjustments still to come, we are no longer in alpha. GRAVEROBBERS has graduated from a 2-page word document to a… slightly nicer looking 2-page word document.

- ease of use and clarity updates! 3-column pamphlet format. Everything has been reworded for reference and simplicity. Extraneous details are omitted, while new edge case rules and notes should help everything flow better. Each rule is still a modular, removable whole, though! Oh, and there’s a character sheet now, finally

- rules tweaks! Inventory/encumbrance rules now standard (though still modular), along with a more defined currency system that ties into the Black Market phase (was Day Phase). The White Eye (was Eye) has been altered - no more certain doom, just a very precarious possible death spiral. Yay!

- item changes kind of ties into everything else but items now have suggested Black Market prices. Some other minor changes (did you know that victorian policemen’s truncheons were marked with their seal an id number, literally it was their badge, you can’t make this shit up, acab and so forth)

- other things i probably forgot!

If you’d like to see more of GRAVEROBBERS, and not just “when i get round to it”, you can support the project through the PWYW feature on gumroad or by purchasing my other game stuff.

Thanks for your support over the years. Next up - starter adventure!

GRAVEROBBERS: Items

Now that almost all that’s left on our character sheet is the various terrible fates that may end our graverobbing career, what other options are still open to us?

Items!

An adventure game staple for good reason. Who doesn’t love a good creative use of a flaming torch and 10 ft of hempen rope. Ball bearings! Glue! This is the good stuff.

In the 0.4 update  to GRAVEROBBERS (link goes here once it’s live…) I’m adding an optional rule (all rules are optional, being in trouble is a fake idea) for an inventory system, which is a revised version of the Encumbrance system I came up with here.

The aim is to really focus in on those items. You’ll care more about them when you have to pick and choose! Players are much more likely to be aware of what they do and don’t have, and therefore actually use those things, when they’re having to make tough inventory management decisions. Of course, these can become boring very quickly - which is why I’ve tried to keep things super simple and slot-based. Hopefully it makes a useful addition.

Having so little by way of mechanics to begin with, that new inventory really does draw focus on the character sheet. It’s making me think about how I might further develop this item economy and really build it in as part of the overall structure.

F’rinstance, all(ish) starting items in the Bare Bones will now come with a suggested black market price, doing the duty of an equipment list from classic games. Of course I am wary of putting a currency system into anything, but this is a game about wealth and money and power anyway

So here’s me thinking about just how central this item/inventory system can get. It’s already a suggestion, but could the Day Phase card draws be explicitly just about getting items? Make it the Black Market Phase (as opposed to… the Red Moon Phase for heists? Idk), every purchase is a draw, that’s what draws are for now? Much more gamey than the current “resolution mechanic”-esque card draw, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

(I’ve been very impressed recently looking into Ava Islam’s game Errant, which has a lot of lovely gamey and procedural rules like these that don’t feel as obtrusive as a freewheeling jazz boy like myself might imagine? That’s the key word, I think “procedures” rather than mechanics or rules. Anyway, here’s Chris “Bastionland” MacDowall looking through Errant, definitely worth a watch-along.)

Then again, a phase that’s just “item shop” seems too limiting given the scope of actions available in a freeform game, even if there’s going to be an emphasis on items. Which, again, got me thinking (what doesn’t, folks, am i right, folks,) of the other things on a character sheet.

Here in GRAVEROBBERS land, aside from Odds and Inventory we’ve got your Crime, clothing and of course player notes - setting details, info gleaned through adventure.

And what are these if not… items?

In other games you might have more on your sheet - languages, spells (the closest GRAVEROBBERS comes to either is the Third Eye). These little tidbits - “I can speak Goblin”, “I know the King’s middle name”, “I can make fire with my fingers” - they’re items, just like “I have rope”, “I have a torch”. They’re little, fictional truths  that you can whip out and use creatively. Same thing.

This contrasts with the other bit of the sheet. Unlike what we might typically call “mechanics” - stats, Odds, AC - they’re opportunities as opposed to restraints. Well… they’re restrained (you have a rope, it says “rope”, you don’t have a snake, it doesn’t say “snake”), but they’re not things that are happening to you in the same way as big nasty RULES, they’re chances to make things happen.

So if your card draw is “just” about getting items, but “items” are everything on your sheet that’s not a RULE - trinkets, contacts, information - then…? Yes this is functionally back where we started, but there’s something to this framing, I think. If we can make it more explicit, more procedural - 

- but here I am, talking about potential future updates when the new update isn’t even out yet. Stay tuned!

GRAVEROBBERS: Odds

 In the upcoming 0.4 update to the Bare Bones of GRAVEROBBERS (I’ll edit this when it’s out!) the system is getting its biggest mechanical change in a while, so I thought I’d go over some of the reasoning there rather than just sticking something in the patch notes. This is inside baseball, nerdy design talk, but hopefully it’s of use to someone!

(Ok so i say mechanical update but it’s really a semantic one, none of the numbers are changing - but then again in a medium made of words, semantics are mechanics, so…)

Up until now the Odds were a PC’s “stats”: Finesse, Fortitude, Violence and Will. After the update these will be reworked into Death, Detection, Detriment and Despair.

as I said the dice/numbers side functions the same way as before, roll for values in character generation, roll xd6 in relevant situations, success means you’re safe and loss means you lose 1 Luck (“HP”). It’s not a resolution mechanic because you don’t “fail” the attempted fictional action (although that’s a valid interpretation) but it brings you closer to the failstate. I went over the rationale and the behaviours it encourages here, some details have changed since then but I think that’s a good explanation.

I’ve already explained the rolls in GRAVEROBBERS as being “more like Saves than Checks”, and this new version makes that more explicit. Characters no longer have things they’re good at! you don’t get to be strong or quick. You get your Odds of Death, in black and white. Good luck.

It’s been said many times that combat is a fail state in adventure/OSR games, or that the answer is not on your character sheet, or that a combat roll or skill check is a last resort rather than a button to press or a key for one of the game’s various locks. It’s my hope with this design choice to “enforce” that somewhat, put it in writing. Imagine OD&D with only Wands, Petrification, Death etc. “Oh are these the cool things you can do?” “No those are all the things that can kill you”. You don’t want to roll!

That’s not all that’s left on the character sheet of course, you still have your items and your notes, character details, in-universe stuff - the things that adventure gamers want to use to overcome obstacles, so why not make that our only option?

GRAVEROBBERS is a harsh, scary (in a fun way!) game, let’s make the character sheet harsh and scary. Of course on the flip side, having the odds written out means there’s always a chance! It’s not all doom and gloom, you know you have these safety nets. Just maybe don’t rely on them too much.

Anyway hopefully some of that makes sense and my intent is clear! Let’s go over the four new Odds - why these, what’s the deal, etc

Death. This is basically the exact same as Save vs Death/Poison in OD&D. The function of a death save has been well established, I’m not exactly doing anything new here! Also on a purely aesthetic level it’s wonderful to have Odds of Death: X written out on your sheet, perfect tone setter

Detection. It’s a stealth game after all! The old rolls triggered on a “caught or hurt”, so here’s the “caught”. I like things this way round more I think! Feels like the logic flows a bit better. And between this and the card system for the House I’ve managed to completely abstract/mechanise the stealth aspects - the idea is that this will have the same function as HP, attack rolls, AC et al have on fighting: Too much fictional positioning in one little moment? tough decision that isn’t as fun if we get to make it ourselves? let’s play a minigame instead. Hide and seek has enough “I saw you!” “No you didn’t” without being played by made up characters in a fictional world! This should take all that out of the players’ hands in a way I hope folks find freeing. You really don’t need to RP or even account for guards and stuff at all, what with the card system automating it all - but I’ll probably talk about that more in future

Detriment. yes I could have just called it Damage but style is substance! This replaces the traditional use of an HP system by accounting for/abstracting all non-lethal damage. So that’s falls and bumps and bruises, but also combat - this is the new Violence roll. Violence already felt nicely bitey and dangerous, now you don’t even get to sound cool, you just roll for “do i get hurt”. Whether you’re attacking or being attacked, as before! All combat is just a Save vs Pain. Can I ward players away from using violence any further?! (maybe, we’ll see lol)

Despair. This replaces Will, but since the saves now trigger based on their individual namesakes rather than a universal “caught or hurt”, this one can show up any time PCs dare countenance the setting’s horrors! Fans of Call of Cthulhu and Mothership will recognise this as a Fear or Sanity save, kind of. Also a nice stand in for save vs Magic. I like that there’s now this explicit supernatural pillar to the game.

In fact, as four pillars of play, the Four Things That Might End You, I think overall we’re getting across the message of GRAVEROBBERS pretty nicely! I like to believe someone unfamiliar with the game can see these four things and get a decent idea of what perils, and what sort of game, to expect right off the bat. Also as touched on above these are the four things that the Dealer and other players won’t have to worry about “running”, decisions they won’t be able to - or have to - make themselves.

You will face the terrible risk of Death, Detection, Detriment and Despair, graverobbers, whether you wish to or not… what will you do?

3-Part Tachyon Detainment Solution

 I came up with this idea for a Mothership module but as you might’ve guessed from the lack of posts here I’ve got a decent bit on my plate - like Journeylands! - as well as a bunch of Mothership projects already (more on all that in due time I’m sure).

Sidenote - never too busy to talk about new projects tho hire me! Graverobbersguide at g’mail dot com

Anyway I don’t feel like I can do much with this concept right now so you can have it, here:

3-Part Tachyon Detainment Solution

-        Lodestone. Monolith found in deep space. Emits a tachyon pulse once per planetary cycle which permeates normal spacetime.

-        Cuffs. Affixed to prisoners’ necks. Calibrated to the lodestone. If activated they time travel, along with the wearer, to the time and place they were in when the lodestone’s last pulse was emitted.

-        Activators. Carried by guards. Activate cuffs from range with electrical signal. Fire as pistol. A lens on the barrel records tachyon emissions and keeps record of successful activations through altered timelines.

 

Notes on Time Travel

When a cuff is hit by an activator, the wearer’s current personal timeline is aborted and their mind returns to their body as it was at 1200 local time. Travellers exist in a new, separate timeline branching from that point.

 

Events taking place after 1200 in any previous timelines no longer exist in a new timeline, though travellers retain memories. Cuffs from the same aborted timeline transport their wearers to the same new timeline.

Travellers make a Sanity save after each timeline reset vs 1d10 Stress. Players do not need to roll checks if their characters successfully performed the exact same action in a previous timeline. Running time travel can be confusing, but your game will work as long as the rules you use remain consistent.

All you’ve gotta do is write a prison break module, simples. I’m sure you’ve seen enough movies. ideas to get you started:

- This is MoSh, so it’s a private prison. Come up with a security corp that made this tech and give them a catchy slogan (I had one but uhh... spoilers)

- Pepper your prison liberally with details, give lots of points of access/opportunities - players will be attempting the escape over and over. Here’s an excellent video by Mark Brown that’ll guide you through the concepts.

- What might be in a prison? security passes, non-lethal weapons, food, cleaning chemicals, identical uniforms, contraband,

- What might be in a MoSh prison? Weird prisoners, secret alien prisoners, clunky security, sci fi contraband,

- 1d10 important locations is plenty, plus now you have a random location table if needed. That’s what i did for Ypsilon 14 (which btw Vi at Collabs Without Permission did a lovely video about here, also definitely watch their Mothership review here)

There ya go

I had this silly anime adventure idea while playing a silly anime game! 13 Sentinels was on my to-play list since release last year and I finally got the chance to get my hands on it. So just like my GM’s Oracle article was an excuse to talk about another Vanillaware game...

(Btw since then Chris McDowall of Bastionland fame has done great things with the concept, not saying he was inspired by me at all haha but check it out for sure)

So 13 Sentinels is a visual novel done as a classic V’ware hand-painted sidescroller. Also there is an RTS kinda side-mode that’s simple and... ok? The main focus though is the story - 13 of them, each with branching paths, each focused around a main character’s daily life interesecting with some sci fi weirdness. Each character also pilots a Sentinel (mech) in the RTS mode, but absolutely nothing here is presented in chronological order - so how and why and when and... what is going on??

There are two moments in good mystery stories, which i will call:

- “Omoshiroi”: Japanese for “interesting”, like how we’d say “...IN-teresting...” with a stroke of the beard. Those moments where something happens you don’t understand yet, but you understand enough for it to pique your interest. A new wrinkle. A clue?

- “Naruhodo”: means like “I see”/“Ah, gotcha!”. Revelations, pieces falling into place.

Anyway - if you can get into it, the story of 13 Sentinels has more of both these kinds of moments in each 15 minutes of gameplay than some of the best mysteries have in a whole movie, or season of TV. The narrative presentation allowed by an interactive medium is used deliciously, but it’s not overly conceptual - very standard controls and mechanics.

It’s one big concept album love letter to the last 100 years of sci fi’s greatest hits. A lot to follow, a lot to read, but if this is your thing then... yeah. Wow. This got a Game Awards nom out of the blue among a lot of AAA western titles for a reason.

Go in blind! Have fun x

(...Hmm... what video game will I find an excuse to talk about next time... :P)

Monster Hunter and Play Culture

 In most video games, pushing a button on your controller makes the character on screen do a thing. When you press the Jump button, for instance, Mario jumps.

There’s an elusive sensation called “gamefeel” which sounds like a meaningless buzzword - and it kind of is - but is considered a real and pretty important thing to aim for in game development. There are proper academic books about it and everything. Basically, that press button to jump flowchart has got to feel right every step of the way, various parts working together to make a single, smooth, cohesive action. So, the physical button has to feel good to press. The jump animation has to look right, feel proportional. Sound design has to reflect what’s happening on screen and what the player expects.

And speaking of player expectations, one of the biggest parts of gamefeel is latency. Essentially, the less delay there is between “button pressed” and “Mario in the air”, the more responsive and good-gamefeel-y the action is. In highly technical systems like fighting games where every frame of animation counts, this is extra important - this breakdown by a professional animator touches on how a game like Smash has to translate the classic animation principle of anticipation to only a few fractions of a second in pursuit of gamefeel. Too much latency and a game feels sluggish and unresponsive. Unplayable.

And then there’s Monster Hunter.

When wielding the game’s iconic greatsword, the time between button press and monster getting hit can be whole entire actual seconds. That’s not even mentioning the recovery animation after a hit, or the fact that inputting a follow-up attack commits to further lost moments - because this game has no animation cancelling.

In a fighting game, a punch is over in a few frames, and if you want to do something else before that punch is over, you just press another button and the character (most of the time) will stop the punch animation and go right into the next move. Instances where that doesn’t happen are specific, a known factor. Otherwise it’s zero frames between the two, a hard cut. In Monster Hunter, if you press a button, you are going to watch that attack’s long, slow animation from beginning to end, every time. And that’s whether or not the attack hits its target - your prey may well have moved out of the way, or started attacking you back, by the time you’re done.

This, understandably, causes frustration in new players. Monster Hunter refuses to act like almost every other video game, seemingly deliberately choosing the opposite of what conventional wisdom says feels good to play.

But the biggest hurdle is that Monster Hunter does not tell you any of this.

The games are filled with tutorial text boxes explaining its various menus, options, and the ins and outs of the game’s hunt-carve-craft gameplay loop. The Hunters Notes in the pause menu is an extensive manual that details every aspect of the game experience with screenshots and clear explanations. Tutorial text boxes may be outdated design, but these cover everything you could wish to know about the game... everything except how to actually play it. That second-to-second action, the fact that every attack requires your little caveman to hoist his dinosaur-jawbone sword over his shoulder and drop it, painfully slowly, onto whatever happens to be in his path by the time he’s done swingin’ without any hope of stopping that momentum, is never mentioned, explained, reasoned out or tutorialised. You will simply try it, feel how wrong it is, look for some meaning behind it, find nothing, and give up.

Ok. Got all that?

Now then.

A YouTuber recently tried out the demo for the series’ newest title, Monster Hunter Rise. He gave it a fair shake but, again, understandably, had pretty much the exact experience I just described. This game is sluggish and slow. It feels bad to play. The attacks are unresponsive, and it feels unfair that I can’t make the character just do things by pressing buttons. Isn’t that how video games are meant to work?

His video, “Why I’m Not Buying Monster Hunter Rise” explained these frustrations pretty reasonably. What I’m interested in here is what happened next.

If you look at the comments for that video - a dangerous proposition at the best of times, but bear with me - you’ll see an outpouring of support and reassurance from Monster Hunter fans. Rather than the “git gud” mentality of a lot of online gaming spaces, people shared their own histories of frustration with the series. Jay’s experiences were valid. Others had also bounced off these games. They really are that confusing and hard! But the comments came with advice, suggestions, and mostly just implored the guy to please, please try again. Because all these people had hated the game at first too, but they’d somehow found something there they’d grown to love, and they wanted to share that.

You can watch the next few videos on Jay’s channel if you want to know what happened next, from his follow up “Why I AM Buying Monster Hunter Rise” video to the two let’s play series he’s currently running on two different entries in the franchise. He tried again, took the lessons the community had given him, and found what they found. He’s now a devoted fan.

So.

I could go into how and why Monster Hunter games actually are good, what the trick is to getting that gameplay to finally click, but that’s not really the point here.

How many of us read an RPG book for the first time and just... didn’t quite get it? How many of us were introduced to what these games even were not by the texts themselves but by our community - an older relative, a friend who’d already cracked the code, our first GM, an actual play stream or podcast. How many of us were taught, wholly or in part, how to get an actual game out of these esoteric messes of rules rather than somehow figuring it all out on our own?

Does that make the texts bad? ...Kind of, yes! Couldn’t D&D books do a better job of explaining their purpose up front? Isn’t that why every indie darling begins with a What Is An RPG section after all, to just try and teach? We desperately want people to understand, we know it’s hard at first but we’re trying so hard.

Couldn’t Monster Hunter, or Dark Souls, or games like those, just... do better? Be up front, explain themselves? Surely that would help all these people who bounce off the game at first actually get into them easier. Surely a game shouldn’t have to rely on a community of fellow sufferers to convey its basic play concepts?

After all... this must limit the player base, right? For every HeyJay there must be thousands more who tried the Monster Hunter demo and swore to never touch it again. For every one of us with a kindly DM to show the way, there must be thousands who muddled through the PHB, bounced off the wall of text or attempted a game and just gave up. If games could just teach themselves, wouldn’t that be a better system than relying on randos to maybe, hopefully, get through their initial dislike, somehow become experts and, after all that, spontaneously volunteer their time to teach what the hell is even going on here?

Right?

Monster Hunter is the biggest selling game franchise in Japan, frequently beating out both Mario and Pokemon domestically. The last big entry, World, was its biggest seller yet, and publisher Capcom’s single biggest selling game of all time. Yes, that Capcom. Rise has just come out, selling approximately 5 million in its first week - almost as much as World did in the same time frame, and Rise is only available on one console. And 5th Edition D&D’s sales have grown year on year since its release, making it the biggest selling game of its kind in history and parent company Hasbro’s biggest seller since Magic the Gathering. Yes, that Hasbro - yes, that Magic the Gathering.

Far be it from me to equate capitalist success with any kind of moral victory, but... clearly, the system works.

More important than good rules or a “good game”, whatever that is - more important than those rules being accessible, well-structured or clearly explained - is play culture. If people want to play your game, they will learn it and teach it, and people will want to play your game, and so on. Apparently, you don’t have to do a thing.

Well... These games must be doing something right... right?

There are tons of factors here, but the biggest one is baked in at a design level - cooperation. Monster Hunter has no in-built competitive play. This is a co-op game, with almost all content playable with friends locally or online. Players want and need more players to play with, and will do the work themselves to make that happen.

Tabletop RPGs, likewise, need a group to function. If you promise people the gaming experience of their lives, a game of pure imagination, as long as they gather friends into the fold, they’ll rally those friends. Groups beget more groups, no zealot like a convert. The games require word of mouth to even be played, and word of mouth perpetuates itself. It’s the most effective marketing tool - ugh, I know, but... it is, because it isn’t marketing at all. It’s friends playing games.

And at the end of the day...

Nobody cares, at least not initially before brand loyalty has taken its evil roots to their brain soil, what the game is. They just need a problem to tackle with their friends, a fun new thing to share with their friends, an excuse to get together with their friends. And that could be anyone’s weird, bad, “unplayable” game. Maybe it’s better to have that initial struggle, just enough jank, so that people can take on the challenge together.

Some people might like watching Citizen Kane, some people might like laughing at The Room. Some people genuinely don’t like Citizen Kane, or unironically enjoy The Room.

...Who cares? The point is having something to talk about afterwards. Something to share.

this one is more on the “the room” end

So what’s the takeaway here? We make convoluted, weird, even “bad” games and expect people to find them, somehow understand and then propagate them of their own volition?

...Kind of, yeah!

I don’t think RPG play culture can be effectively explained to every potential player in the same way and get an equal reaction. So why bother trying? Instead of writing an explanation, write something that their friends will have to, want to, explain to them for you. Engender excitement and curiosity, offer tools, and... let it go.

And idk, maybe that’s the takeaway? Play culture will grow on its own, wherever we stop interfering. People already have the main ingredient - friends - we’re just supplying the seasoning, maybe the cutlery. (Don’t look into that metaphor too hard.)

With the right conditions in the Petri dish - a decent design, an initial push, some challenge or ambiguity in the way of direct interpretation, and a whole lot of luck and probably even more money, the culture takes care of itself.

And it might take bold new shapes, might grow into something separate from your initial seed. But, like... so what? Sure, they might “get it wrong”, but who are you to decide that? If you stop someone using the bits from your spaceship model kit to make a robot, you’re not teaching or guiding at all, you’re just stopping their game. At that point you’re basically just - spoilers - the bad guy from the LEGO movie. And if people do play D&D “wrong” and start teaching that “wrong” game to others... again, so what? They’re joining a lineage of designers that starts with and includes Gygax.

I think we make toys, and it would be the height of arrogance to try and decide how anyone else should play with them.

(Does system matter? Well, whether I take my ball or my scooter to Jerry’s house we’re going to have fun playing, and we’d probably still find a way to have fun even if I took neither, and oh look I’ve spent too long theorising and now Jerry doesn’t want to be my friend any more.)

The best we can do is offer possibilities. The fun is in seeing what happens next.

(EDIT: I’m liking MHRise so far! Aknosom is my boy but the biggest surprise to me so far was Bishaten, what a fun fight. GL main and proud. Hit me up and we’ll hunt together 💪)