In anticipation for the release of Chain×Link, my semi-cooperative dungeon-defying RPG, I am covering one aspect of the game’s design and development each week in July. Obtain a copy of the game by subscribing to the RPG Zine Club by Plus One Exp before August or purchasing the game directly from the Plus One Exp store once available.
Core Resolution Mechanisms
One of the first things I look for when learning or making a TTRPG is the core resolution mechanism. The core resolution mechanism (CRM) is the set of rules that resolve action and drive play. These are the rules that the players engage with the most often.
CRMs can take the form of rolling dice over or under a target number, drawing a card and looking up a prompt, or pulling a block out of a block tower. Because players engage with CRMs often, they tend to be short and simple to learn. Some games even market themselves based on the simplicity of their CRM. If players forget all the other rules of the game, they should still be able to keep playing by using the CRM, or a variation thereof.
From a designer’s point of view, the CRM sets the groundwork for all other subsystems and mechanisms for the game. It’s the base code on which all other programs are written upon. If a game uses a 2d6+Stat mechanic as its CRM, a subsystem that introduces the use of 1d20 over a target number is out of place and breaks immersion.
Ludonarrative Resonance
CRMs strive to be short and simple, but at the cost of ignoring their narrative potential. How can the act of wanting your result to be higher than a target number in a 1d20+Stat CRM convey something about the themes of the game? If your character is sneaking past guards, do you as the player feel different when you need to roll under a number, versus over a number? Are you slipping past, or are you overpowering an obstacle? How does the action of giving a token to a player change when they aren’t called tokens, but favors, or souls? The degree to which mechanical actions a player takes are tuned to the narrative themes of the game is what I call ludonarrative resonance.
Since players engage with CRMs frequently, tuning the CRM to a core theme or emotion makes for a more engaging experience. The block-pulling mechanic from Dread is a great example of this–the tension of pulling a block out of the tower is felt by the players and translates to the tension felt by the character. Spencer Campbell’s Slayers achieves this through asymmetric play. Rather than having an attack with a bow and arrow use the same 1d20+stat CRM as an attack with a heavy greatsword, a single simple CRM (rule of 4+) is applied to each class in different ways to emulate the reloading of a six-shooter, the concentrating of magical power, or the swinging of a sword.
The Core of Chain×Link
Chain×Link was born out of a design exercise: “can I create a CRM where cooperation is core to play?” Many games have rules for assisting each other, but few TTRPGs consider cooperation beyond describing the assist and doling out a bonus die or modifier. My response to this came in the form of the following two rules:
- You succeed if the result of your roll is equal to or greater than the previous roll.
- Your group succeeds if the total of the successful results is equal to or greater than the target number.
This is the CRM of Chain×Link1. Boiled down, this is the entire game. This mechanism has a lot of implications for the rest of play, not just in what your character can do, but what your character can do in relation to other characters. It’s setting the theme of the game and making a statement about it. It’s building a world.
We have a CRM that relies on other characters. One character’s success directly impacts the chances of the next character succeeding. We have this feeling of building upon one another…dare I say…a chain of events. Already we see a theme of working together…or climbing on top of each other…We also imply that actions, or at least their impact, get larger and larger, but are made only possible by the smaller actions that laid the foundation beforehand.
Your individual actions may succeed, but your individual actions are only one part to achieving the grand goal, the group goal. Cooperation is required, you cannot accomplish anything alone. But with these linked actions we are drawn to ask, “what happens to the character who is on top?” And that’s where the additional tension, the competition, lies. If the highest result a player can get is 10, what is the game saying when it includes a rule that allows you to break that limit? The CRM is saying something about the game world–we experience the opinion of the game when we play by its rules.
Unconscious Complexity
When I began writing the rules for Chain×Link, what I imagined as a simple CRM ended up requiring more words on the page than originally intended. That one or two sentence rule we consider a CRM in TTRPGs is really only part of the CRM. Just as in tutorials to video games or when teaching a new player a board game, the CRM is the on-ramp to learning the rest of the rules. The rules may ask you to roll 2d6+stat, but what you do with that number, and how that number affects play, is all part of that core mechanism. There’s a conversation that takes place between players, a negotiation2. Just like there are core game loops, a CRM may be better thought of as a core resolution procedure3. Every add, compare, ask, or other verb in the rules for your CRM is a step that a player has to take.
And I think that’s what I mean by a narratively resonant CRM: how can we ascribe narrative significance to mechanical actions? To most players, mechanical actions will just be something they do with little examination. But even on a subconscious level, those actions emphasize the themes of the game, they are making a statement about the rules within the shared world. How can we make the ritual of assembling dice for a dice pool say something about what the game believes is required for success?
Footnotes
- Of course, there are additional rules that are part of the CRM that I won’t delve into here that provide additional layers of player-choice and thematic enforcement. One of my favorites is, “roll a dice pool of d10s and choose any die as your result.” ↩︎
- Minimalist TTRPGs are often criticized because what they gain in minimalism they actually lose in approachability. These games rely on a lot of assumptions and implicit play culture that players are expected to bring with them into the game. I think that’s a valid critique. I also imagine that most minimalist games usually aren’t aiming to capture players new to the medium. ↩︎
- I’m not versed enough in game design theory to speak about “mechanism” vs. “procedure” and if those terms are even that different. But I think the term, procedure, highlights the step-wise nature of interactive play found in TTRPGs. ↩︎