Last week, in discussing how System Matters, I posited the hypothetical situation of an RPG which didn’t include a combat system. I did so because the entire concept is inherently radical: Including a D&D-derived combat system (even if it’s several generations distant from its progenitor) is such an essentially universal element of RPG design that the idea of a game which doesn’t do that is perceived as bizarre. I’ve actually seen people get angry at the suggestion, so ingrained has the expectation become.
So let’s talk about an RPG that actually does this: Technoir.
HOW TECHNOIR WORKS
We need to start by explaining how Technoir works:
First, characters are given numerical ratings in nine Verbs: Coax, Detect, Fight, Hack, Move, Operate, Prowl, Shoot, and Treat. These are basically the equivalent of ability scores seen in most roleplaying games.
The core mechanic of Technoir is to use a Verb to push an Adjective onto a target. The Adjective is literally any adjective: A word describing a quality possessed by a noun (i.e., the person or thing that you targeted). By pushing an Adjective onto a target, you are changing the description of that thing. In doing so, of course, you are fundamentally affecting the fictional reality of that thing: A computer system which has been hacked or bot-slaved is fundamentally different from that has been secured.
The mechanics of the game elaborate on this central conceit by (a) varying the severity of the Adjective you can apply (from fleeting to sticky to locked), (b) giving you mechanical structures for using these Adjective (so that they’re not just nebulous descriptions of fictional state, but also mechanically meaningful constructs), and (c) providing mechanical methods for removing negative Adjectives.
The cool thing about these mechanics is that they’re not dependent on the Adjectives you’re pushing: The mechanical structures work whether you’re pushing bullet-riddled or sympathetic or terrified.
STAKES IN TECHNOIR
In most RPGs, the combat system defaults to “I want him dead” as the stakes for the scene. In fact, this is often the only time traditional RPGs mechanically declare whether or not the stakes of a scene are achieved. (Most RPGs provide lots of mechanics for determining whether a specific method chosen by a character has been successful, but ultimately leave the question of whether or not that allows the character to achieve their actual goal to the GM fiat. See The Art of Rulings for a lengthier discussion of this.)
Technoir goes in almost exactly the opposite direction: You can’t push “unconscious” or “dead” or anything else that could remove the target’s agency in one hit unless your target is a Henchman (i.e., a mook). You can trivially set virtually anything else as the stakes for a roll, but not death.
This is a mechanical implementation of one of the pillars that Technoir identifies in the hard-boiled stories it’s seeking to emulate:
COME AT THEM SIDEWAYS
The conspiracy is bigger than her. The forces she’s dealing with could crush her like an insect. She can’t just kill all her enemies, she’ll have to outwit them. As such, this game doesn’t have a combat system designed for defeating opponents. It has a social manipulation system that gives the player the means to influence characters and nudge the narrative direction in which violent methods may be employed.
One of the semi-invisible consequences of combat systems and death being the only place where traditional RPGs mechanically declare a scene’s outcome is that a lot of GMs and players have become heavily conditioned over the years to think of death as the default ending for any conflict. And this is really weird when you think about it, because it’s not the way it generally works in other storytelling mediums (and it’s definitely not the way it works in real life).
Technoir breaks that conditioning. This means that the GM and players alike need to think about what they really want and how they can achieve that. The concept of vectors is really important in Technoir: If you want to achieve X by doing Y, then there needs to be a clear path by which Y can achieve X. You need to line up your shot. The fact that vectors aren’t always a straight line is, of course, the whole point. Sometimes the PCs have to push one adjective onto an NPC before they can push the one that they want (you need to get them trusting you before you can seduce them into being vulnerable). Or you’ll need to make it stick before you can lock it down.
The same is true for NPCs: If you’re the GM, make sure you know what they actually want out of the scene. Once they’ve got it, they aren’t going to stick around. Have them push the escaped adjective onto themselves, spend the Push dice they need to lock it against the players, and skedaddle.
DEATH IN TECHNOIR
All of this is not to say that character death is taken completely off the table in Technoir. What good noir story doesn’t feature death, after all? What if what an PC wants is to kill a PC? For example, let’s say the GM wants to frame a scene where a sniper takes a shot at a PC because they’ve been asking the wrong sort of questions.
The assassin’s bullet is going to push mortally wounded as an adjective onto the PC and the GM is going to lock that fucker in place by spending a couple of Push dice. And the important part is that once they’ve taken that shot — once they’ve pushed that adjective — the scene probably ends.
At this point the rules for “Lethal Consequences” are going to kick in: “At the end of any scene in which one or more adjectives were asserted that describe physical harm against a character, there is a chance that adjective might lead to the character’s death.” The specific mechanics for working that out aren’t particularly important for this discussion (but you can find them on page 138 of the rulebook). The point is that the PC has to check to see if he’s dying from this adjective or not. Even if he’s not dying from the wound, of course, he’s still going to be permanently debilitated by his injury until somebody pays to chrome him up.
And when the assassin finds out his target somehow survived the shot, he’s going to be coming back to try again. What are the PCs going to do about that?
That final bit is the really key element to grokking Technoir: The question of, “Do you live or die?” is not intrinsically interesting. You might die, but the game is far more interested in making you own your adjectives and then asking, “And what do you do about that? How do you fix it? How do you live with it?” Mortal injuries from sniper rifles aren’t inherently more significant in that equation that having your heart metaphorically ripped out.
As far as NPC death is concerned, I’ve already mentioned that Henchmen can be killed in a single shot (by spending Push dice to make dead lock onto them). The rulebook is a little less clear about what it takes to knock out Heavies and Connections (the other categories of NPCs), but what it boils down to is vector: If the PCs can put themselves in a position where they can justify getting the bullet to stick, the GM should let it stick. (That might mean beating them bloody. It might mean compromising their security. It might mean breaking their leg and making them helpless before you cap a bullet into their skull. It’ll depend on circumstances.) Note, too, that the “Lethal Consequences” rules don’t specify player characters; in fact, it says the opposite. The GM can (and should) use those rules for NPCs, too: You shot the Bride in the head and left her dead, but she woke up.
What are you going to do about that?
I find it useful to distinguish between RPGs (where the mechanics interact with the fictional world), and story games (where the rules interact with the fiction). Based on the description of Technoir above, it sounds like a story game, not an RPG. As such, I’m not sure how relevant it is to RPGs proper.
Hey Charles,
I’m not sure your judgement of Technoir is quite accurate. When characters are pushing adjectives onto other characters with their verbs, those verbs represent their in-world capabilities. No one is rolling “Protagonist” to gain control of the story or spending “narrative control tokens” or anything of that nature. The adjectives pushed have to be relevant and related to the character’s “Attributes” or the nature of the Equipment they are using, etc.
What Ben said.
With that being said, the Push dice economy in the game IS a narrative control mechanic. Somewhat similar to the fairly ubiquitous Fate/luck point systems, but also a little move involved than that.
While I literally coined the distinction between RPGs and STGs that Charles is talking about, I don’t really subscribe to the purity test interpretation of that distinction. But Technoir is certainly a more blended experience than some RPGs.
I find the lack of scene ending mechanics in most rpg’s to be a serious problem. Once I added clarity to that, my players and I have never looked back.
There are so many things you can tie to having clear scene resolution, one of which is rewards. Players LOVE entering a scene and seeing what the rewards will be at the end of the scene, if they can only accomplish X! Then, adding long-lasting complications can be clear, too, which can give players agonizing decisions to make. Do they do A in order to get B reward, but that will cause Z? Or do they do C in order to get D reward, but that will cause Y?
Once I set up a system supporting me with these types of mechanics, it has been SO much easier to create interesting obstacles for my players. The obstacles just seem to jump out if I start with the things players want and the things that will add complications if they get what they want.
Hey Tyler, that’s really, really interesting. Could you provide some real examples? How do you present it to the players at the table?
Dunno if you keep track of comments on old posts, but this post prompted me to go read Technoir. Very cool – I have a soft spot for the noir genre, and this seems to have a chance of capturing the feel. I want to try it. But I have a few questions, and haven’t found a lot of discussion of the game anywhere else.
• I am surprised the game contains no advice at all for when or how to lean on protags to pay back their shark debts.
• The rules say specifically that only two favors per connection can be called in during generation, but have no guidance on how much you can go back to ask for more later on once the game starts. “Favors” implies tit for tat, the protags should have to do something to earn more favors or at least have a limit on how many can be called in. But hardboiled stories don’t normally involve a lot of side quests, so maybe it should be assumed that protags “recharge” a certain number of favors offscreen in downtime between investigations?
• If I’m Roman and my connection Pi Larson is killed in the first scene of an investigation and my connection Dumas is killed/jailed/run out of town in the last scene, should I just automatically draw some replacement connections in downtime; or is this like locked adjectives that require replacement and I should make some rolls? Having connections to hit up seems pretty important. I’m tempted to start pulling in downtime concepts from Blades in the Dark, but I’m interested if there’s a native Technoir way to do it that I’ve missed seeing.
• Transmissions seem sort of unbalanced to me, in that it’s kind of weird that all the characters who might be involved in a plot are available as potential Connections up front. It’s like, in step 4 of char gen you hand the players a list, “here are the 6 people who are up to no good tonight. Pick 3 to be your friends.”
• It’s also weird to me that a roll on the Master Table is equally likely to select a MacGuffin as a Connection. Any given story only needs one macguffin, but having only six other characters described seems like barely enough.
Noir is a genre about people’s dirty secrets, and what they will do to keep them hidden. Which makes me want to replace Objects with Secrets. The Sex File is already good, but the boring Executive Limousine should be replaced with things like “Repudiated Love Child” or “Negligent Manslaughter”. I also kind of want to add another type of character who can show up and push people around and who *cannot* be hit up for favors by lowlife protags. Maybe personalize “Factions” — replace them with “Heavyweights” who express or represent the factions. Because anyway what would it mean to roll “Kozenokes” in a plot? I’d have to invent a specific Kozenoke for protags to talk to, and wouldn’t it be better if someone interesting was already present in the Transmission?
Curious to know if people who’ve played the game think I’m on track or not.
(1) I think the game largely assumes people are aware of how debts get repaid.
(2) I’d strongly recommend against limiting the number of favors PCs can call in during play. Calling in a favor is the default action of the Technoir scenario structure: It’s what PCs do when they don’t know what they should be doing. Limiting the ability to call in favors during play would be a little like limiting the number of doors you can choose to go through in a dungeon.
(3) Morenoir has a discussion of restocking your transmission and changing it over time, although it may be less mechanically driven than you’d like.
(4) There’s absolutely no reason that the Connections need to be “up to no good” in any particular plot map that’s generated. Note that there are TWO sections in a transmission describing NPCs (Connections and Threats). Add in Factions and there are plenty of non-Connection people who can be up to no good. The conventions of noir storytelling means there’s no reason to AVOID having connections be involved in the current conspiracy, but it’s not a requirement.
Also, thinking of every link on the plot map as “up to no good” is too limiting. Pi Larson’s connection to a conspiracy could just as easily be “daughter kidnapped by” as it is to be “guy who is kidnapping people’s daughters”.
(5) Thinking of Objects strictly as McGuffins is also too limiting. Objects can serve a lot of different functions in a story. It’s far more common for an Object in Technoir to be a clue or a payment than it is to be a McGuffin.