For the yet-untitled game that I've been working on, I want to set up a resource mechanic system that's going to pull enough weight to make things feel like it's a full-bodied game, but not take a lot of time and effort to get used to.
The other day I wrote about the overall setup for the game, in case you're curious about some of what I'm working on.
One thing about a lite game is that having a core mechanic that is very simple is a must. You don't want a bunch of odd use cases, so my resource system needs to do a little of everything without getting fat.
That holds true for characters, the dice mechanic, and especially the gameplay loop.
Designing a Resource-Based Loop
Because this is a GM-based roleplaying game, the standard course of operation looks like this:
Player: "I'd like to do this."
The GM chooses between one of three options:
- "Sure, here's what happens."
- "You can, but it's not guaranteed. (Optional: Modify your threshold for success by +/-X.) Roll for it."
- "No, I can't see that happening."
Obviously this is an over-wrought structure, because this doesn't happen all the time. Rather, the rules only matter when an outcome is uncertain, so at least a good chunk of the time people will just be narrating events.
For that middle option, we have three branching outcomes (see my dice mechanic explainer):
- Success without complications.
- Success with complications, or failure without complications. (Player choice)
- Failure with complications.
Complications are where the resource mechanic interacts with the main gameplay loop.
Characters have three resources: Health, Ego, and Spirit.
Depending on what they're doing, the consequence falls onto one of those three resources.
Do You Need Numbers?
My design assumes a resource pool size of 4 to 6 in each resource pool, meaning that a character has 12 points by default.
The reason for this is really simple; I want to keep characters from going beyond checkbox-friendly numbers.
That sounds very shallow as a reason, but there are several considerations that led into that.
1. Character Sheet Design
I want the character sheet to be a load-bearing part of this design. It needs to be visual and intuitive, and I want players to have all their data clearly presented.
Consider the following example of how handling the resources as check boxes looks:
Hopefully, the final version will look a little better. Five-minute mockup aside, this block uses a design language that's borrowed from video games.
I find doing check boxes like this to be both potentially more glamorous than having fields for numbers and easier to use during play. Checking a box with a pencil is a simple task, it's form-fillable PDF friendly, and gives immediate visual feedback.
From a "not really bothering to go deep into it" psychology perspective, there's also something about checking/unchecking boxes that feels better than changing a number.
2. Matching the Game Functions
One of the unspoken rules is that you never lose more than one of a resource at once.
This isn't a guarantee; there are very rare times when you might, say, botch a defensive roll in combat against a very nasty enemy.
But each point of a resource works more like a stand-alone object and less like a number.
You have 4 Ego that can be divested separately, or 4 Health that can be divested separately.
I don't want players to think in terms of HP in a video game or D&D where you are going to be looking at massive changes to pools.
When you lose a resource, each point lost should feel like a distinct point. These resources are the difference between life and death, and you want to hold on to them as tools rather than manage them as numbers.
3. Manageable Amounts
One issue that I have with games like D&D is that they do this sort of multilinear scaling where you are getting more competent at acting, larger resource pools, and more options simultaneously.
Setting aside the fact that you need to put three scaling systems in place, the problem is that you wind up with arbitrary numbers.
I want to set up a system that's very much against that in theory and premise, and one idea of that is that your resources don't scale with your character. Some characters who are durable, energetic, or strong-willed will have a point or two more in their resource pools, but that's a defining element of that character rather than something that's going to go up forever.
Taking that option off the table also does a couple things.
- It prevents drawing out the complication spirals too much. At most you get a 50% edge over the average starting character.
- It focuses domains for expertise along the roll-facing mechanics, typically attributes, and takes other changes off the table.
4. Mathematical Compartmentalization
You have numbers in the main mechanic of the game.
These numbers always operate in the same way, though you may occasionally have an additional number or two to factor in.
These numbers are the only math in the game.
This helps to keep the weight down tremendously. When you lose Health, or Ego, or Spirit, you're never running math alongside that.
Again, I will not do a deep dive into cognitive psychology to see what tangible effects this might have in play, but I suspect there's a slight streamlining effect.
The real benefit here is that you're never going to have a question of what's going on. You're never deducing numbers from each other except for adding up thresholds, which is a simple function you'll be doing again and again.
Learn to do one mathematical operation, in one context, and that's all you need to learn for the game.
Everything else is a non-mathematical action: lose Health (by erasing a check box, which is a kind of mathematical function but also has a tangible object relationship), have a narrative effect come to pass, or don't have it factor into the operation of the game.
There's no doing make-work math here.
Token Representation
One additional benefit of this system is that you can also play with tokens or counting dice to track resources. That might be a moot point because the character sheet is a game tool that will be at the table, but it offers a few benefits:
- It's a tangible touch that many players enjoy. The sort of colored tokens or dice that you might use for this purpose are trivial to get and easy to transport.
- One downside of paper-based character sheets is that they can become worn over time, even if players are fairly careful when marking and erasing high-wear sections. Having counting dice or tokens means that the highest-traffic section of the character sheet is not being rewritten constantly.
- Going in with the idea of a lite game fighting in the heavyweight leagues, little things that are memorable and tangible interaction points make the game feel vivid. Compare this to rules minutiae that take up a spot in the rulebook but rarely get used in play.
Wrapping Up
My resource system for this game goes for as simple a system as possible. It's plugged into the character elements in a couple small ways, but these are very limited.
I think that by going for a minimized approach I can achieve a few desirable goals (like making taking a hit in combat or suffering magical corruption feel meaningful) while also keeping the overall weight of the game as light as possible.
It is always a pleasure reading about your process of making games.
This post will be shared in a new Game Development community I have started. You are always welcome to share further game development posts in there if you like.
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