Effect Based Gaming

This is a new philosophy for players and GMs in a game. Basically, its a way to think differently about the game, hopefully in a way to improve the gaming experience for everyone.

Philosophy

The purpose of gaming is to have fun. Thats not news. What we do to achieve this end is as varied as the personalities of those who choose to play. Also as varied are the systems used to adjudicate the action in game.

In general, action is adjudicated in a cause based manner. What causes a weapon to fire? Ammunition, of course. To determine whether a character can fire his weapon, we check to ensure he has the proper ammunition and its loaded. This involves bookkeeping, and can slow down the game. Its also much less appropriate for certain styles of game. In those it is good to ignore this aspect of the game.

But what about situations when equipment and ammunition are important? In these games it is easy to get bogged down in numbers and accounting. In many cases, this detracts from the gritty nature that strict record keeping is supposed to promote.

Action should always be fast in games. The mechanics should enhance the gaming experience, never hinder it.

Often the GM wishes to achieve a specific feeling or effect during a session or campaign, this is primarily accomplished by pacing, interaction, and other intangibles the GM controls. Sometimes, however, the mechanics can work in unison with the GM to forward this aim. To do so, however, it is often advisable to shift the perspective from how a thing occurs to what it is that actually occurs. The goal is to simulate the effect in a dramatic and exciting fashion, not to be 'realistic' in what happens.

Practicum

In a post apocalyptic game it could be important to enforce a survival aspect. The standard approach to this type of setting is a strict record of food and ammunition, as well as concentrating on minutiae. This does make survival seem important, but it can also become very tedious, and it encourages hoard gaming (which in itself detracts from the setting).

One possible solution is an effect based approach. In a survival situation, the tension is created by the risk of supply exhaustion. You might not have enough ammo, you might be low on food. But when you have a piece of paper that tells you exactly how many bullets you have, you can always just save one for when you might need it.

And realistically, that might be what a smart hero might do. But is this optimal from a story perspective?

Where is the tension, the drama, the action? In The Road Warrior, Max gets into a wreck and when the enemy closes on him he knows he has one last shotgun shell. He loads it into his gun and fires. Its a dud.

The scene was tense and dramatic. And it could be argued that this is simulated in a 'normal' game, since its certainly possible for a dramatic failure. Yet scenes like this hardly play out in RPG situations.

An idea which could easily increase excitement is to adjudicate the effect (being out of ammo) instead of the cause (keeping track of ammo). How do we do this? Give weapons an ammo roll. When this is failed, that shot was your last.

This also works in other situations. How about a supplies roll? When it fails, you are out of food.

During the game, when players grab new equipment and ammo it just adds or subtracts to this roll. That way equipment hoarding is less valuable, it can never ensure you will have enough of something, only make it likely.