u/Run-a-Game

In a lot of contemporary crunchy games, leveling up also levels up the difficulty of the combat and noncombat challenges you face.

I understand the thrill of “number go up.”

But you quickly discover you’re graduating from goblins to orcs and orcs to ogres and ogres to giants and so forth. You still beat five of them in three rounds and lose 20% of your HP.

Your 75% chance to pick a rusty village bandit lock at level 2 is no different from the 75% chance you have to pick an enchanted gnomish clockwork lock at level 16.

But there’s a lot of effort required to create 400 pages of feats, class abilities, maneuvers, spells, and stuff to facilitate 20 level ups (or whatever the game has). So there’s got to be a good reason for doing all that work.(1)

Designers working on systems with levels — what’s your reason for including them? What benefit do they provide that’s worth all that work?

Designers working on systems with advancement, but not levels — what’s your reason for including advancement rules?

Designers working on games without advancement at all — what is that doing for your game?

(1) I wrote a whole blog post about some of the benefits of level / CR systems, so I’m not ignorant here. You don’t have to explain to me what D&D players get out of it. I just want to hear a diverse group of opinions and design goals for advancement systems from a diverse group of designers!

All design projects should start with clear goals. Those goals should inform everything you build for that project. Every mechanic should support those goals. The goals can change and refine over time — hopefully this community can help you do that, even. Without goals, you’re on a journey without a map or even a clear destination.

If a mechanic doesn’t clearly support your design goals, it means one of four things: your design goals need to be updated, your mechanic is unclear, your mechanic is unnecessary, or your mechanic is counterproductive.

If you ask for advice here like “what’s the best damage/injury mechanic?” you’re going to get a lot of “it depends” answers. And those are the most helpful answers!

The redditors giving advice without knowing your design goals are trying to help, but they could be sabotaging you without knowing they’re doing it!

So don’t just ask about a damage/injury mechanic (for instance). Copy and paste your design goals from your design bible so we all know what goals the mechanic needs to support.

Is it a crunchy, tactical fantasy game? Is it a grim survival horror one-shot? Is it a kid-friendly comedic microgame? Is it a dramatic hard-boiled detective storygame? What are you trying to achieve with the mechanic? What goals does it need to align with and support?

Here’s a big example to show why design goals matter. What about that ideal injury mechanic? Would it support your design goals to make the PCs feel like badass heroes (Draw Steel), generate “bleed out” that makes players feel vulnerable and exposed (Ten Candles), make life feel harsh and cheap (Apocalypse World), or make PCs feel like monstrous predators (Vampire: the Masquerade)?* *Is it meant to have crunchy tactical significance (LANCER) or generate story complications (Masks: a New Generation)? Is it meant to be used only in extreme situations (that one chapter in Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast), or is it part of the core loop and used all the time (D&D)?

Just because a mechanic is good doesn’t make it good for your game. I love the Urban Shadows debt system, but I wouldn’t use it in a Honey Heist or Kult game. I love the Blades in the Dark invention system, but I wouldn’t use it place of Pathfinder 2e’s RAW crafting rules.