Favorite game mechanics

We have the horrible games thread, which also includes mechanics you don't like. But we don't have to be a bunch of negative nancies - what game mechanics do you really dig?

Stunting in Exalted - I love giving players a bonus for a cool description. It makes fights more dynamic and engaging, and I've found encouraging creativity beyond just using the powers on your sheet. I also like that it allows the PCs to edit the game and bend the rules. Nearly every restriction in the rules saying you can't do something include the line 'without the use of a charm or a stunt'. It also returns Motes, the bits of essence that power the abilities. This is something I didn't understand until I saw it in action. When powerful exalts face each other down, they'll generally beat on each other and keep from getting smacked down by burning through their Motes. Once everyone is out, the game becomes 'stunt your ass off so you can get enough motes to do your death blow before your opponent gets their defenses back up.'

Research in InSpectres - Mystery games have a problem. We've all watched CSI or read Sherlock Holmes, and it can be really cool. The detective sees all the seemingly unconnected evidence but puts them together into a whole and announces the answer. In a game, this can be hard to pull off. You either give them every detail, relevent or not, and hope the can put the pieces together, or call for check after check and risk missing a vital clue.

InSpectres turns the problem on its head by not having the GM even decide what the mystery is ahead of time. When you succeed at a roll, the player gets to say what the result is. Now you may worry that players will just make this as easy on themselves as possible, but there's a certain economy to the game. If the problems aren't too hard, you don't get paid too much. So you want to make it hard, but not too hard. Be interesting to see in play.

Morality in Hunter - Morality in World of Darkness games involve a hierarchy of sins. Do one lower than your current morality you have to make a check. Fail, and your morality lowers and you might just get a mental derangement. Hunters are more likely to do things that drop morality. Just because someone is a vampire that does NOT mean that you don't take a morality hit for setting them on fire. If a hunter wants though, they can change their morality.

Say you set a monster on fire and it burns down a nearby building, killing several innocents. You can take a morality roll, or you can change your moral code. On the sin of 'manslaughter' you can put a note that says 'its okay if people get killed while I'm hunting monsters'. However, this means you aren't on the same wavelength as most of humanity. You get a penalty to social rolls and a Tell, some behaviour that comes from bending the moral rules.

Practical Experience in Hunter - You get your normal XP in Hunter, but you also get points for fighting monsters, which you can use to buy Tactics, special attacks that your entire group can learn. They let you stake vampires easier, or burn monsters without setting the neighborhood on fire. Just love the idea and the implementation.

Drama Points in Buffy - No other game mixes power levels as well. Drama points let Xander hang out with Buffy, as well as reinforce the tropes and themes of the setting. Love pretty much everything about them.

So what mechanics do it for you?

[rant]I think we disagree on mixing power levels in Buffy. What allows mixing power levels in Buffy is not Drama points IMO. Its the lack of death. John would have died 3 times in that campaign, and most of his XP went to his rapidly draining Drama Points just so that he could actually damage the stuff in combat. 20 DP don't mean a whole lot when every round you have to use one just to do minimal damage to the thing the Slayer can kill 3 of just by farting. John went into negative HP 3 times (would have been much more had it not been for the health restores at new sessions) How much damage did the Slayer take in comparison? Did she ever even take damage?

Buffy is fun, and I love the Unisystem, but it's hardly balanced. I'd say it's about as balanced as a mutant rabbit vs. a mutant wolf. But that's okay with me because I don't need balanced rules for a fun game. That shit is a fools errand.[/rant]

Here's my list of favorite mechanics (and targets for James to retaliate against, since I just pissed on "Joss Whedon the RPG" ) :

Transdimensional TMNT: I bought this book expecting the same thing all the other $12 TMNT supplements gave me, a shitty adventure but some good villains to swipe for my own story. Instead I got a sandbox, with a great story that the PC's could play or not, plus the absolute best rules for balancing time travel I have read.
Very simply things from the past brought forward in time become more powerful because they contain more "temporal energy" than the things from the future where the potency of temporal energy is depleted. It works in reverse too. The best part tho, and something you kids barely scratched at is, it affects living creatures too. So a person from 2009 sent back to hang with neanderthals will feel weak and fragile compared his surroundings, but with enough time he'll acclimate and begin to become more brutish, and cave man like. Further than that can have all sorts of fucked up effects. And going forward reverses it. Your surrounds will feel like tissue paper and plastic, and you'll feel like a super hero, but eventually you'll acclimate to your surroundings and evolve.

Unisystem: Stat + Skill + d10 vs 9. Goddamn brilliant. That simple formula solves so many previous problems. Like just because somebody is a skilled shot, doesn't mean they know how to build a gun. Do you don't need a ton of skills, and all of your ability scores matter! Not only does it just make sense, it works smoothly and makes me wish I had thought of it.

Palladium Fantasy's Magic System: That's sort of the problem with Palladium, isn't it? I love bits and pieces but the whole is kinda archaic crap. Anyway, the magic is point based...so that's a bonus right there...but the part I love is that the really powerful spells (like your Power Word Kill, Wish, and that sort of stuff in D&D), take more points to cast than a wizard can have, so he has to drain the points from his allies, unsuspecting and/or unwilling NPCs, or even his enemies in some cases. There's also the rule that the Potential Psychic Energy (magic points) of a person are released at the moment of death and they double. Plus children have much more PPE than adults.
So you end up with a temptation to drain folks, do sacrifices, and even really nasty baby killing stuff...which gives all wizards (killers or not) a bad reputation and makes them unwelcome. So yeah, you're a Summoner, or a Warlock and can bring down demons and elementals to smite your enemies...but you're also labeled a "baby eater" and if people know you're a wizard they throw rotten veggies at you...or worse.

AD&D Weapon Speed and Initiative: Just worked and made sense. Big clumsy weapons generally (but not always) went after the quicker, small weapons. I don't get the point of rolling a D20 to see who goes first and then toggling one side's attacks for the other. Not realistic, not balanced, and unless you're doing it each round it's completely pointless.
AD&D had it right, but I also liked the OD&D(?) option of rolling a d6 and that was the second of the round in which you acted. If two characters got a 4 then check Dex, if Dex is the same, then they both acted at the same time.

Okay half my entries are Palladium and I can't have that.
Deadlands Character Creation If you never rolled a character in Deadlands, you are missing out on a treat. The rules for combat aren't great (they're far from sucking tho!) but the real treat is chracter creation. Drawing cards for your background is great. Also, Deadlands didn't invent the Edges/Hindrance thing, but they perfected it. To this day, I still giggle at the Hindrance called "Ferner." A "Ferner" is what you are if you aren't born in the USA. Cracks me up.

Deadlands sounds awesome :).

As far as Drama Points, that's a feature, not a bug. They are not meant for you to keep up with the Slayer - they're made for you to be able to hang out with her and not immediately get splattered against the wall. In general, the white hats are fun to roleplay and the heroes get to kick ass and take names. The 'not dying' is one of the main things that Drama Points *do*.

As far as balance, my last game should show you how much I care about balance. Not only did I throw balance out the window, I threw a TV on top of it then climbed out on the ledge and peed all over it. :D

The Weapon Speed bit made me think about initiative systems. I really like the Ludis system that I was using for Buffy (and continue with Hunter). I roll for the bad guys (or their leader). PCs each roll - if they beat the bad guys they go first. Then bad guys, then PCs. No keeping track of initiative numbers. The PCs can go in whatever order they want. This is something of a throwback to OD&D, which would have all the PCs go at the same time, or however they wished to go. It makes teamwork easier and eliminates a lot of accounting. And 99% of the time ends up being exactly the same a cyclical initiative.

I also like tick-based systems. Exalted 2e uses one, as does Aces & Eights and Hackmaster Basic. Everyone has a mini or counter on a clock. Do your action, then move however many ticks around the clock. Gives that tactical benefit of faster and slower actions, while everyone can see at a glance who is up next and when the bad guy is going to act.

Not to bring negative into a positive thread but that initiative system drives me NUTS. It basically penalizes you double for losing init rolls. First the bad guy hits you, then it's his regular turn in the order so he hits you again. It turns every init roll into a surprise round for one side or the other. In Buffy it's even worse as it's basically impossible to beat a bad guy in init if you don't have quick reaction time or spend a drama.

as far as things I enjoy system wise...hmmmm

I really do find that the wrestling game (WWF the RPG) excels at creating the feel of the thing it imitates, a perfect feel of one guy beating the other for 5 minutes straight, then the other guy turns it around and goes to town on him and so forth.

I think the last warhammer edition has the best rules for an actual swordfight. The way it works parry and attack so that a combat is not 2 warriors hitting each other over and over but instead 2 guys with high scores could parry and thrust turn after turn looking for the one opening(and with the damage rules that 1 hit may well end it.)

Likewise gotta love Boot Hill for making bullets KILL. I don't think any other game gives bullets the impact they have in real life quite like this one(of course I'm a killing DM so of COURSE I like that).

Also in Werewolf (old WOD) the fact that you can't buy the really awesome gifts till high rank which is earned by renown is a good one. I like a game where if you want better powers you have to follow the behavior you are supposed to display.

As far as Drama Points, that's a feature, not a bug. They are not meant for you to keep up with the Slayer - they're made for you to be able to hang out with her and not immediately get splattered against the wall.

So you don't remember our first combat then?

[EDIT]Okay since Mark posted a rant too, I'll clip mine down so we aren't picking on your game.
Let's just say I agree with Mark but, as always I have more nerd rage.[/Edit]

And the Palladium Arms & Armament supplement had some neat rules for lethal bullets, however they had a complexity that I wouldn't ever use unless gun fights were gonna be paramount in the game. If I was to run the 1930's gangsters RPG that I always dream of doing I would use the rules, because there wouldn't be any other "powers" or abilities in combat but bullets.

Not to bring negative into a positive thread but that initiative system drives me NUTS. It basically penalizes you double for losing init rolls. First the bad guy hits you, then it's his regular turn in the order so he hits you again. It turns every init roll into a surprise round for one side or the other. In Buffy it's even worse as it's basically impossible to beat a bad guy in init if you don't have quick reaction time or spend a drama.

The bolded part is true, but that's true regardless of the exact initiative system.

Let's say we do cyclical init 3e style. Bad guy has a combat of 14. You've got a Dex of 2 and no Fast Reaction. Even if you roll a 10 he still goes first. And we have the *exact* same result as using the alternating sides. 3eD&D, 4e, every game that uses cyclical initiative essentially comes down to good guys go/bad guys go with the fast people getting to go first.

Rogue, wizard, ranger, and cleric in 3e roll initiative against some orcs.

Rogue is really fast and gets a 24
Ranger is pretty quick too and gets a 15
Orcs are average and get a 12
Wizard is below average and gets a 9
Cleric is slow and gets a 5

They alternate in this order. But, if you don't care about who goes first among the PCs, you can say the Rogue and Ranger go before the orcs. Then orcs go. Then PCs go. Are the rogue and ranger getting a free turn? Not really, it technically goes wizard-cleric-new round-rogue-ranger. But again, I don't really care who goes when among the PCs. Nor do I typically track init for different bad guys. Nor do I care when the end of the round is.

I think I really need to emphasize that its everybody's turn. Once the bad guys are finished, I don't care what you rolled on initiative. Comparing it to a surprise roll is fair. You're seeing who gets to go first. After that first action it no longer matters.

And I don't see how he's getting double. Even if you lose, all that means is that you're the wizard or the cleric. He goes, then you get to go. The only people that get to go 'double' are PCs that beat the bad guy's initiative. But again, that is no different than cyclical initiative.

That's not how you ran it tho.
You ran it:

Winners go
Monsters go

Monsters go
Party goes.

That's how it was double.
Cyclical initiative is stupid now matter how you dress it up. If we're just doing it, by swapping back and forth, then why roll at all?

No, I never recall running it that way. Winners go, Monsters go, Party goes. We'll take a poll to see who remembers what. :P

It did occur to me that I might as well have made the rule Heroes go, monsters go, everyone goes, because that's what it was 95% of the time. :P.

The only point in rolling at all is to see who goes first, after that I don't care. Keeping track of init numbers feels like needless paperwork to me.

Well IMO when initiative is cyclical it is pointless. Just a silly thing to see who goes first before you trade blows. Fights don't work like that.

That's why I do initiative every round. That's how it was supposed to work, but I do know, if you do initiative every round you need a simple system that is fast. Cards in Savage Worlds almost count, they could be faster, but that's why I like the d10 AD&D initiative and the D6 stuff. 3rd ed's d20 + dex + other method generated stupid numbers and the whole thing could have been done with a d4 or a d6 for all the difference a d20 made.

Doing it each round means that sometimes one side will be faster than the enemy and get two hits in before they can counterattack. That's how fights work, watch a boxing match.
Once you get players that understand this fact, the crying about multiple actions dampens a bit too.
It's one of the most frustrating things for me. For some reason so many GM's make combat actions a tennis match and then to counter that the games have had to come up with rules for multiple actions. Seems silly to me.

Once again it's a matter of perspective from the players. The brain creates imaginary pause breaks in the combat when initiative is rolled. So hitting a monster, then rolling initiative and hitting him again before he gets an action, is somehow different than hitting him, and then hitting him again with a penalty.

Oh and I can think of at least one time, specifically, when the combat did run like that. It was when we went to the heavy metal world. That entire night John did 2 combat actions. One was to attack (and miss) a biker, the other was throw his axe at the big bad (and miss), and both times, it was the action that initiated combat, not an action that happen through initiative. In actual combat I never got an action. So unless you're telling me we killed the big bad in less than 1 round of combat I think you might be mistaken. That wasn't the only night, it's just a specific example.

Hrm, you do make a good point. My biggest goal honestly is to keep things moving and avoid recordkeeping. I think I'll stay with it in Hunter because it will make using Tactics simpler - all the PCs using the tactic act at the same time. It will avoid worrying about delaying actions.

I do consider initiative to be a problem, I don't really like how it works in any game. Ideally I'd want to eliminate that mental space of breaking down every action into discrete turns and have everything feel like it flowed. That's the idea behind Ludis, that the PCs as a whole have a turn. Its not PC1 then PC2 then PC3, its whoever wants to do something. But if that's not coming through I need to work on it some more.

Another interesting mechanic I've seen was in the old D6 star wars. Combat happened simultaneous in that system, but it specificed that the PCs were to sit around the table in ascending order of Perception score. Thus, the PCs with the highest perception got to see what everyone was doing before they acted.

There were many instances of the Big Bad going down in one round, sadly. I think that was one of them.