Risk Assessment

I'll take min/maxing for fifty, Trebek!

Let's get this out of the way right off the bat, I love it when bad shit happens to characters. Your character, my character, it doesn't matter. When a cunning plan doesn't survive first contact, when a die roll goes bad, when you role-play yourself into a corner, whenever something unfortunate happens in game it warms the cockles of my stainless-steel heart. Why? Because that threat, that jeopardy, it makes me tingle all over. In my opinion, a game that doesn't punish as much as entertain, and doesn't have an element of risk, isn't much of a game at all.

Pretty bold statement, eh? See, now, your mileage may vary, but I like a game that's hard. I like a game that, well, punishes bad or stupid behavior on the part of players and encourages them to think around corners either through setting (Iron Kingdoms) or rules (L5R), or both (Rogue Trader). It's why I played EVE Online for so long, there were definite, expensive, often devastating  consequences for failure, and the risk entailed in throwing my multi-billion Isk ship into combat was exhilarating for just that reason. Now, I'm not talking about a system that's hard for hard's sake *coughRoleMastercough*, but a game that has built-in consequences. I like a game that makes a player stop and say, "You know what? Maybe we should talk/think our way out of this, 'cause shooting our way out isn't going to go as well as we'd like."

For example, combat in Shadowrun 3rd edition, at least the way we play it, is dangerous. Like, really dangerous. This is especially true in our Harn game, the middle-ages crime drama, where something as simple as a broken leg could have disastrous consequences for a character. See, with no magic and no really real medicine to speak of, a deep cut or a broken limb can kill a man in Harn. Granted, this is more a result of the setting than the rules, but my point stands. Brawling is perfectly acceptable, but if blades come out something has definitely gone wrong. Iron Kingdoms is the same way, right? Need a clerical healing? You better have a lot of money or a lot of luck because that cure light wounds spell will fill your body with ravenous maggots just as soon as it'll heal you, and that's awesome.

It's why I don't go for cinematic games. I like a game where damage goes through your armor, where you can't dodge bullets, where you run out of ammo, and where a wrong step or a misplaced comment can ruin your night. My friends and I call this hilarity ensuing. I play games like this, I run my games like this, and I write my games like this. When I was writing Robotech, I kept trying to increase the lethality of the game, which of course was every bit as constructive as, well, something not very constructive. I wanted more damage output from my weapons, less damage capacity in my mechs and armor, more reason to use different kinds of munitions, and more threat. I realize that this runs counter to what a lot of people consider the spirit of Robotech, and honestly I didn't care. I still don't. Of course increasing jeopardy and forcing critical thinking was never going to fly in a system that was designed, essentially, to let a player win at RPGs. Oh well, c'est la vie, right?


I'll finish with a story. When I was working on my first assignment for Rogue Trader, which was largely rules and game design, I had a long conversation with Sam about just this very thing. One rule I was writing hinged on the GM making a roll that directly affected the players and keeping the result secret from said players. Sam pitched me an alternate idea, which was easier on the players, then asked me, "So, from a game design point of view, which do you think is better?" I replied, "Mine. Things should always be hard for the players, and if they're going to do X (where X is the rule that I still can't talk about) they don't get to know if something goes wrong until the wheels come off." Sam laughed and said, "Awesome, do it." and that rule ended up in the book largely untouched. That's just the kind of bastard I am, I guess. When I'm a player, I ask for little mercy, and when I'm running or writing a game, I offer even less. So, you know, caveat ludius.