Shamus Young has posted his proposal for an interesting Learning Mechanic at Twenty Sided. Here’s how he describes the goal of the mechanic:

Most gameplay mechanics are set up so that characters learn and grow from success. The more success, the more XP. I wanted a mechanic that would simulate an activity that was inherently driven by trial-and-error, and where (this is the important part) the character got gradually better at the activity as time went on. Learning would be fast at first, but progress would be slow. Later on, learning would slower, but success would be more frequent.

He recommends the mechanic for tasks like translating a tome written in an archaic language; finding the cure for a zombie plague; breeding animals; and the like.

Here’s how he describes the mechanic:

The player writes down all the numbers from 1 to 20 on a notecard. Every time they roll a number, that number will be crossed out on the card. If they roll a 15, then they cross out 15.

Each attempt needs to simulate a stretch of in-game time. Hours of labwork, meditation, tinkering, writing on the chalkboard, or whatever is required.

When they make an attempt, they roll the d20. If the resulting number is already crossed out, then the action was a success and they get their reward. If not, they still get to cross out the number they rolled, which will improve their chances next time around. Using a d20, they have no chance of success on their first attempt, and a 5% chance on their next attempt. Every failure improves their chances by 5%, and every success moves them closer to their goal. You decide ahead of time how many successes it will take to reach their overall goal. (For our game, I had the book broken into 13 sections. So the character finished the translation after 13 successes.)

I like the basic concept of this mechanic a lot. It’s similar to a complex skill check, but offers the specific benefits Shamus describes: At first, learning happens fast but progress is slow. Later, learning is slow but progress is fast.

STREAMLINING THE MECHANIC

The idea of keeping a notecard and crossing off number is a nifty gimmick, but if you want to streamline things then you can simplify this mechanic:

Roll 1d20. If the result is equal to or lower than the number of failed attempts you’ve made, you score a success. When you achieve the requisite number of successes, you succeed at the task.

I recommend checking out Shamus’ article directly, as he includes a probability chart useful for determining how many successes a task should require.

It should be noted that, by default, the problems handled by this mechanic are always soluble — given enough time, you will eventually solve them. There is no possiblity of absolute failure. In addition, the mechanic doesn’t account for skill. For some problems these may be seen as features. For other problems they’re bugs. Let’s take a look at how the mechanic might be made more flexible and robust.

EXTENDING THE MECHANIC

PROGRESSIVE SUCCESS: Each success can yield additional information or some other tangible benefit. (A cure that works against the bite of a specific zombie; several pages of translated text; a slightly improved animal.) The mechanic is specifically designed to model tasks which don’t feature all-or-nothing successes.

ROADBLOCK: After a certain number of successes, progress in the task may only be possible when some other prerequisite is met (additional biological samples, a different type of natural resource, etc.). In many cases, the nature of the roadblock may not be known until the roadblock is reached.

VARIABLE DIE TYPES: For tasks of greater or lesser difficulty, you could vary the die type. (With a 1d4 you learn everything about the project rapidly and then gather successes rapidly. On the other hand, with a 1d100 your learning curve takes considerably longer.)

INTRACTABLE PROBLEMS: For problems that could prove intractable for a character, simply set the maximum number of possible attempts. If the character has not achieved success after X attempts, then they’ve exhausted their insight into the problem. (Having multiple people working on a problem like this is useful not only because it speeds up resolution, but also because it gives greater insight into the problem — as represented by more potential checks.)

FACTORING SKILL, METHOD 1: You can factor the character’s skill into the attempt by limiting the number of possible attempts based on their skill. In D&D, off-the-cuff, I’d recommend something along the lines of 10 + skill modifier attempts.

FACTORING SKILL, METHOD 2: You can also make character skill a factor by simply setting a minimum skill requirement. A particular problem, for example, might require a minimum Knowledge (history) bonus of +10. (The drawback of this method is that it still doesn’t allow for any variation in completion time based on character skill. A character with a +10 bonus is just as capable of solving the problem as a character with a +50 bonus.)

FACTORING SKILL, METHOD 3: Set a DC for the task. Each d20 roll becomes an actual skill check. If the character succeeds on the check, the roll counts double. In other words, depending on the die roll, it either counts as two successes or as two failed attempts. (If you’re combining this method with an intractable problem, however, each die roll still only counts as one attempt against the maximum number of possible attempts.)

DISCLAIMER

I’m just spitballing some ideas here. I have not actually run any kind of mathematical analysis on this mechanic (although, as I noted, Shamus Young did provide useful charts for the core mechanic).

One of the things that tends to happen with long series of speculative fiction novels is that, at some point, the author will stop, look around, and begin thinking about how the world around their main character really works. They’ll begin asking questions like:

What is it really like to live as a near-immortal in this semi-feudal, caste-based, Fate-bound Empire I’ve created? How long does a near-immortal remain a child or a young adult? What types of jobs do the common people do? How does the economy function?

And so forth.

This can either be a good thing or it can be a bad thing. It’s a good thing if it adds a richer depth to the world and opens up stories which might otherwise never be told. It’s a bad thing if it leads to the author blandly info-dumping their “research” (which, in this case, doesn’t even have the advantage of imparting actual facts).

In the case of Brust’s Dragaera novels it is a very good thing.

As with my discussion of non-traditional narrative structures in Taltos, this is another trend that actually started with Teckla, but it’s a tradition that carries strongly into Phoenix.

Brust doesn’t make the mistake of boring his readers by having his protagonist (Vlad) lecture them on the finer details of Imperial history, military tactics, or social engineering. Instead, the world simply happens. Details are dropped when necessary for comprehension, but the focus remains tightly fixed on the immediate story being told.

In the case of Phoenix, it’s a story made up of political assassinations; divine meddling; foreign entanglements; social unrest; and (most importantly) personal crises.

I think it says something about this novel that, by page 5, Vlad is standing in front of a goddess… and proceeds to haggle with her.

Let me say that again: Vlad stands in a front of a goddess and haggles with her.

I’m not sure what it says to you, but to me it said: “WARNING: AWESOME ROLLERCOASTER RIDE COMING UP.”

The other thing to note here is that what really makes these Vlad Taltos novels click is not what happens (although that’s almost always entertaining in its own right), but how those events affect the characters.

The only real criticism I can level at Phoenix is that it never quite comes into its own — it never quite seems to figure out how to fire on all cylinders. The events of the novel are all entertaining enough, but don’t quite rise to a particularly memorable level in their own right. The supporting cast is still varied and well-drawn, but none of them are deeply affected by the events of the novel. (Which should not be thought a flaw: There is no particular reason why they should be affected or transformed by these events.)

Which means that the real engine of the novel is, essentially, the character arc of Vlad Taltos himself. But even here, the developments of Phoenix are essentially a coda to the turning point reached during Teckla. In many ways, in fact, Phoenix ends up feeling like an extended (although not over-extended) epilogue to that novel.

Which is fine. It’s probably even a necessary step in the development of Vlad’s character. But it does mean that Phoenix is (a) the first novel in the series that doesn’t stand by itself; and (b) pleasant enough, but nothing to get particularly excited about.

Actually, maybe “epilogue” isn’t quite the right description. In a lot of ways, this book feels like the second part of the trilogy — having neither the advantage of an explosive beginning (Teckla) nor the satisfaction of a well-earned conclusion (wherever Vlad’s going).

One final note: I was utterly unsurprised when I reached the end of the novel, read Brust’s biographical blurb, and discovered that he had joined a band. I’m not sure what it is about SF authors who join bands, but they seem incapable of realizing that what they think are “pithy” observations about how “crazy” the music biz is are (a) not that interesting and (b) usually bone-jarringly anachronistic.

It kinda reminds me of certain military SF written by actual combat veterans in which the tactics, jargon, and culture of 33rd century warfare all look and sound exactly like whatever war the author was fighting in (even when that doesn’t make the slightest lick of sense).

I think it must have something to do with the experience being personally transforming, while also being so incredibly personal and specific that they have difficulty using the material to enrich their writing instead of letting the material use them. (For a counter-example, consider J.R.R. Tolkien’s personal experiences in World War I.  The battles described in The Lord of the Rings don’t look anything like trench warfare (and would be horribly anachronistic if they did). But I feel that Tolkien was still able to use his personal experiences to enrich his fictional depictions of what being in a war feels like.)

GRADE: B-

Steven Brust
Published: 1990
Publisher: Ace
Price: $7.99
ISBN: 0441662250
Buy Now!

Before scientific experimentation disproved it, most people believed in the spontaneous generation of life (also known as equivocal generation). For example, it was believed the maggots spontaneously generated out of rotting meat. That places of darkness spontaneously generated all manner of crawling things (as could be seen upon lifting up a rock). Worms arose from dirt and even frogs were once thought to come from the mud.

This was a universe literally teeming with life energy.

For the purposes of fantasy, I find it particularly fascinating how many of these theories revolved around places of filth, putrescence, and decay giving rise to vermin: Maggots from rotting flesh, rats from excrement, and so forth.

So when we look around our fantasy milieus and see monstrous forms of vermin — dire rats, giant spiders, and the like — could we use such theories of creation as their basis? I think we can. In the vile places of the earth — the places were the very form of the world itself has begun to decay — such creatures are given form out of the darkness. And thus our dungeons teem with life.

Another interesting facet of the theory of the spontaneous generation of life is that, like many pre-scientific beliefs, it was not extinguished by scientific thought — rather, it retreated before it. Once it was proven that maggots are the larvae of flies, for example, the theory simply moved to become the spontaneous generation of bacteria out of the “life force” of the air. It wasn’t until Louis Pasteur rooted out the last of its hiding places that the theory finally died.

I bring this up to suggest that we can just as easily turn the dial in the opposite direction. We can even add a metaphorical (or perhaps metaphysical) component to the theory.

For example, John Wick’s Orkworld postulates that orcs are actually photosynthetic. But we could just as easily say that the orcs spontaneously arise wherever civilization is not: When empires fall, tribes of orcs appear in the ruins.

And we could elaborate upon further upon the themes of this theory: Mice were known to physically reproduce, but they were also thought to spontaneously generate out of moldy grain. Ergo, our orcs can both spontaneously generate out of the lack of civilization, but also reproduce.

Further, we could build upon this by considering the ideas of Lamarckian evolution — that life, once spontaneously generated, strives to become more and more complex. Thus we could postulate that all humanoid life has its origins in the primordial generation of orcish life from the absence of civilization — orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, and beastmen of all sorts appear spontaneously, but then some among them will breed and improve.

This doesn’t even necessarily need to be true, but it would certainly be an interesting religious belief. For example, your dark elves might believe that orcs, humans, elves, and dark elves all exist along a continuum of improvement. (It might be even more shocking if you made this a secret belief among the elves: They look at humans the same way that humans look at orcs… they’re just too polite to say it.)

You could root all of this cosmology in the apeironic weave of creation. Where that weave becomes weakened, spontaneous generation occurs. When weakened by decay, filth and vermin appear. When weakened by the loss of civilization, orcs appear. When weakened by vile death, undead appear.

Such a cosmology could have interesting implications for how summoning rituals or the creation of undead work. For example, Jean Baptista von Helmont had a receipe for mice: “Place a dirty shirt or some rags in an open pot or barrel containing a few grains of wheat or some wheat bran, and in 21 days, mice will appear.” Magical spells like create undead could directly manipulate the apeironic weave in order to cause undead to appear; but you could also open things up by allowing non-magical manipulation of that weave (through ritualistic murder, for example).

You could also flip the whole conceit of “weakening the weave” on its head. Perhaps clerics and living saints appear in those places where the weave has been strengthened. Perhaps the gods themselves are nothing more than those places where the weave has been unnaturally strengthened through the power of belief or sacrifice or chance.

I’m calling shenanigans.

Of late the meme has arisen that the difference between “new school” and “old school” gaming is “rules, not rulings”. The free Lulu PDF A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming seems to be a primary infection point and I don’t think we’ll go too far wrong by quoting it:

Most of the time in old-style gaming, you don’t use a rule; you make a ruling. It’s easy to understand that sentence, but it takes a flash of insight to really “get it.” The players can describe any action, without needing to look at a character sheet to see if they “can” do it. The referee, in turn, uses common sense to decide what happens or rolls a die if he thinks there’s some random element involved, and then the game moves on. This is why characters have so few numbers on the character sheet, and why they have so few specified abilities.

There are several problems with this meme.

BAD EXAMPLES

The Spot and Search skills tend to get targeted a lot by people trying to explicate the “rules, not rulings” concept. For example, the Quick Primer for Old School Gaming goes into a pair of lengthy examples of “old school” vs. “new school” play.

In the “new school” example, a player says they’re searching a hallway. They find a pit trap. They ask the GM if they can disarm it. The GM rules that they can. They jam the mechanism. (The results of the search and disabling attempt are handled by skill checks.)

In the “old school” example, a player says they’re checking the hallway. They fail to find the pit trap, but they’re suspicious so they try a different method of searching. They find the pit trap. They ask the GM if they can disarm it. The GM rules that it can’t be disarmed. They go around the trap instead. (The results of the search and disabling attempt are handled by GM fiat.)

Now, if you’re trying to establish that the difference in play here is GM fiat vs. dice rolling, then these examples would be just fine. But what the author actually does is load up the “old school” example with a bunch of details — using a 10-foot pole; carefully inspecting the floor; pouring water onto the floor to detect the edges of the trap — and then tries to attribute that additional detail to the GM fiat.

But the GM fiat has nothing to do with it. It’s an artificial conflation of two different distinctions between the examples. The use of GM fiat vs. predefined mechanics only matters in the moment of resolution. The amount of detail that goes into searching a particular stretch of hallway, on the other hand, is an entirely separate issue.

The “old school” example could just as easily read:

GM: A ten-foot wide corridor leads north into the darkness.
Player: I carefully check the floor for traps.
GM: Probing ahead you find a thin crack in the floor — looks like a pit trap.
Player: I try to jam it so it won’t open.
GM: No problem.

And the “new school” example could just as easily read:

GM: A ten-foot wide corridor leads north into the darkness.
Player: I’m suspicious. Can I see any cracks in the floor? Or a tripwire? Anything like that? [makes a Search check]
GM: Nope. There are a million cracks in the floor. If there’s anything particularly sinister about any of them, you certainly don’t see it.
Player: Hmm… I still don’t like it. I’m going to take my waterskin out of backpack. And I’m going to pour some water on the floor.
GM: [calls for a new Search check with a circumstance bonus for using the water] Yeah, the water seems to be puddling a little bit around a square shape in the floor.
Player: Can I disarm it?
GM: How?
Player: Jam the mechanism? [makes a Disable Device check; it fails]
GM: There’s no visible mechanism. The hinge must be recessed.
Player: Is there enough room to walk around it?
GM: About a two-foot clearance on each side.
Player: Okay, we’ll just try walking around it. Everybody watch your step!

Here’s a different example:

What I like mostly is more of the focus on descriptions rather than mechanics.

Player: “How wide is the ledge?”
GM: “Maybe 2 inches..”
(New School) Player: *seeing the modifiers of the Balance skill for that short a span* “Oh, nevermind, I better find another way across.”
(Old School) Player: “Okay … can I press myself up against the cliff face and side-step across?”
GM: “Sure. Since you aren’t pressured and can take your time, you don’t even have to roll anything.”

In other words, it’s more about player (and GM) creativity.

The poster here ascribes the difference to “creativity”, but that’s not what the example is actually demonstrating. Although the poster obfuscates it by giving different outcomes to the “old school” and “new school” games, the core of the example boils down to a single question: “Will I be able to cross this ledge?”

In the “old school” system the GM determines this by fiat (automatic success, automatic failure, or some probability of success based on an arbitrary dice roll). In the “new school” system the chance of success is determined mechnically.

Isn’t the “old school” GM getting to be “creative” because he determines the probability of success? I guess. But, of course, the “new school” GM also gets to determine the probability of success — he set that probability as soon as he described the ledge as being only 2 inches wide.

LOSS OF CONSISTENCY

So we’ve discovered that “rulings, not rules” is really just a mantra for, “I like GM fiat.” Fair enough. What’s the problem with pervasive GM fiat?

The loss of consistency.

Ben Robbins’ essay “Same Description, Same Rules” is an excellent summation of the problem. Here’s a quick quote:

Rules should not surprise players. More specifically, if you describe a situation to the players and then describe the rules or modifiers that will apply because of the situation, the players should not go “whaaaa?”

If they are surprised it’s either because you specified an odd mechanic (a will save to resist poison) or a really implausible modifier (-6 to hit for using a table leg as an impromptu weapon).

[…]

On the other hand if the same thing uses different rules on two different occasions, it’s hard to see how it makes sense no matter who you are. This might just be the result of inconsistency (oops) or you might intentionally be using another rule to get an advantage.

I recommend reading the whole thing. Robbins’ basic point is that players cannot make logical, informed decisions if their actions have inconsistent results.

The problem with pervasive GM fiat is that you are either (a) creating inconsistency or (b) creating house rules on the fly. And if you’re creating house rules on the fly then:

(1) You have to keep track of them.

(2) Hasty decisions will frequently have unintended consequences.

(3) Even if the house rule you came up with on the fly is good the end result is no different than if you’d had a good rule to start with.

OLD SCHOOL DID WHAT NOW?

So you say, “Screw that. Ben’s wrong. Consistency is vastly overrated.” Well, sure, that may be true. Everyone’s entitled to their own tastes and opinions after all.

But that really brings us to the crux of the issue: The whole concept of using “rulings, not rules” as a distinction between “old school” systems and “new school” systems?

It’s complete, unmitigated bullshit.

For example, take a peek at the example given in A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming: The difference between GM fiat and mechanical determination of success in finding and disabling traps. That’s a distinction that’s been around since the Thief class was first introduced in Supplement I: Greyhawk.

In 1975.

And if your contention is that the New School started in 1975, then I think it’s safe to say that your use of the term is out-of-synch with the way that most people use the term.

But this extreme example only highlights the other core failure of the meme: It claims that the great thing about the “old school” is the lack of rules (which, in turn, allows for GM fiat). But all of those “old school” games seem to feature all kinds of incredibly detailed, nitpicky rules — betraying a bugaboo for the exact sort of consistency that the “old school” movement is now trying to forswear.

Having a Search skill changes gameplay? Sure. But let’s not pretend that’s any kind of systematic preference for rulings vs. rules, because you know what else changes gameplay? Explicit mechanics for determining the loyalty of hirelings. And those rules are part of OD&D, but not 3rd Edition or 4th Edition.

The truth is that the game has moved towards GM fiat in some cases and away from GM fiat in other cases.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

There is, I think, a legitimate philosophical divison being alluded to here: The difference between “do what you want and we’ll figure out a way to handle it” and “you can only do what the rules say you can do”. But let’s not pretend that this is a division between “old school” and “new school” play. The term “rules lawyer” is older than I am.

In addition, I think the truth is that a properly structured rule system facilitates rulings — assuming, of course, that you’re not using the word “rulings” as an ad hoc synonym for “GM fiat”. The 3rd Edition skill system doesn’t just give you a tool for differentiating character concepts — it also provides a robust and open-ended mechanic which can be used to make any number of rulings.

It’s certainly possible to look at any ruleset as being a set of shackles that prohibits you from doing anything not explicitly proscribed. But, in my opinion, a properly designed ruleset is a flexible foundation on which an infinite number of structures can be securely built.

Honestly? The whole “rules, not rulings” thing was a valiant effort. But you’re going to have to keep trying if you want something more than “old school is what I point to when I say ‘old school'” as your definition.

Julia Nunes rocks my world.

Ms. Nunes plays a variety of cover songs and original works in YouTube videos. And she is simply delightful. There is something effervescent in the palpable joy that she brings to her music. You can see it in her face and hear it in her voice. It’s a joy that’s infectious. It leaps from her voice and into your heart.

Let me show you the two videos that turned my into a raging fanboy:

Every time I watch the video I’m impressed anew by the fact that, after starting the song with the wrong lyric, she simply starts again. It’s not just about her self-confidence as a performer in that moment — it’s about the entire atmosphere it creates: “Hey, I’m gonna play some music. Wanna listen? I like this song. Let’s have some fun.”

No matter how many times I listen to that song, in that moment I always accept her offer: I start having fun.

Convinced? Good. Come join the rest of us. We’re having a marvelous time.