Thread by @AlexandraErin

So I've been reading the Dishonored tabletop RPG and I think they have my favorite version of the "oh, we're not doing attributes" attribute system that I've seen yet.

If you've closely followed my game design theory threads, you might know that I have a strong disdain for systems that give things players will need to refer to in play cute/twee names that don't convey what they're for, like having a stat named Hot, Cool, Hard, Weird, or Wisdom.

(And if you think "Wisdom" doesn't belong on that list, just wait until people start replying with what they think it *obviously* means. NB: I'm not asking.)

Dishonored TTRPG's approach a player character's basic abilities uses two sets of six stats, referred to as Skills and Styles, but which are basically six superclasses of actions (Fight, Move, Talk, Study, etc.) and six adverbs (Boldly, Forcefully, Swiftly, Quietly, etc.)

Along the lines of my previously stated dislike, I don't like games that expect players to phrase every in-game action their character takes in terms of an explicitly categorized move or action (which often also have cute/twee names) and Dishonored TTRPG verges up against that...

...without actually straying into that territory. It's only when a player character is taking an action that is dice-worthy that it must be categorized, and then it's not "Which of these moves am I making?" so much as "Which category of action would we say this is, and how?"

And I think keeping the focus on action is right, for a TTRPG that is adapting an action-oriented video game, and the focus on six different top-level approaches as effectively being different skill sets really fits Dishonored and the Arkane "Play Your Way" approach.

And outside of specific PC abilities that might interact with them, there's no mechanical difference between the styles of actions; there isn't one rule for doing something Quietly and another for doing it Forcefully, for instance. The difference is purely narrative.

And if you think of the styles as being the equivalent of ability scores in D&D, you have far greater leeway to default to using your best one, but doing so constrains you story-wise to relying on a particular approach again and again, with whatever story consequences follow.

Now, I haven't played or ran the game; I got the PDF of it yesterday so I would have something to occupy/distract myself today as I wait downstairs out of my office for an important delivery that requires a signature.

But I'm very impressed with multiple aspects of it.

One thing I've talked about before on here, about video game design that I think is applicable in non-intuitive ways to tabletop RPG design, is the sense of freedom that entails when a game has both bounding forces and the ability to break free of them.

And my go-to examples of this are basically Mario and Corvo Attano.

From Super Mario Bros onward, Mario has been a dynamic figure who moves through the world with a clear sense of weight and presence. Mario in SMB has momentum. He can duck and slide under overhangs. There are animation frames for turning and going into a skid.

When Mario games transitioned to 3D, the sense of weight and the impression that he has a presence in the world is real, but once you get some momentum going and you triple jump or wall jump or long jump, there is an electric feeling of defying gravity.

And it feels freeing. It feels like freedom to do so.

And if you've ever played a 3D game with a no-clip and fly setting turned on... you can then move in any direction, through any obstacle, typically at a fixed but decent speed. And it, paradoxically, doesn't feel freeing.

You don't have the same sense of exhilaration that comes from *briefly* breaking free of a bounding force or limitation of gravity, if those limitations aren't present to begin with.

Yeah, that's a huge saving grace in my mind. I mean, I don't mind game mechanical language, if it's unambiguous. But natural and meaningful is a sweet spot that is hard to hit.

https://twitter.com/N01H3r3/status/1446460666395627529

Anyway. The Dishonored video games have that same Marionic sense of living in a world bounded by real constraints, of embodying a character who is affected by real physics, leading to hard-scrabble game play that is punctuated by moments of pure joy and freedom.

And some of that is in the magic powers that let you defy the rules that bind *most* of the other characters, and some of it is in the ways the game's combat engine occasionally treats you to a sniper shot kill-cam or a flashy finishing move.

The tabletop RPG equivalent of this, in my view, isn't trying to port over video gamey concepts like "If you jump three rounds in a row, each jump is higher." but giving player characters unique or mostly-unique license to circumvent the ground rules at limited but regular times.

And the Dishonored TTRPG -- near as I can tell without playing it -- seems to do a good job of that, in part by having three different types of "meta points" (Void, Momentum, and Chaos) players can interact with to exceed their normal limitations or impart a change to the story.

Each of the three points have different uses and a different principle (Void Points are personal to the player character, Momentum is shared among all the players, and Chaos can be "spent into being" by a player, giving the game runner points to use to complicate things later.)

My current tabletop project also involves multiple types of "meta points", something I have felt conflicted about, but I think one really strong thing the Dishonored TTRPG has in that area is that two of the point pools are shared and can be represented as tokens on the table...

...so that everybody can visually see how much Momentum the group has and how much Chaos they have incurred, while they only need to track and remember to use their own Void Points (and if they have magic, their MP.)

Anyway. I still haven't read the whole thing but I really think the Actions-Not-Attributes thing fits the Dishonored milieu well, because it's not like the video games really give you a sense of "Regular guards are this strong, officers are 2 points stronger," etc.