Mind-mapping your player's options!
Mind-mapping is a tool I use all the time with my students. Mind-mapping is a literal expression of how you think. It’s an important tool for teaching and learning. If you don’t understand the neural network, and what information the students are currently connecting, then you will never know how you can get new info in there.
But its not just a tool for memory and recall. Its a method for creativity and to make better connections of information that you already have.
“Research with young children shows that mind mapping has a positive impact on creativity. And there’s nothing surprising to these findings: mind mapping allows your mind to jump around and freely make connections, without a rigid structure. It’s great in the exploratory phase of a project, and could be combined with a more restrictive phase later on to get the best of it.” - Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Exploratory Phase of a Project
This is the important bit for me and my TTRPG design currently. I have been trying to make my game more tactical, and to make sure that when a player is taking their turn they feel they have interesting options. However, its a fine line that a designer walks. You want to give interesting options without making every turn prescriptive. You have to design in a way that there isn’t a right answer to a given problem. This is just like the idea of railroading in story design. Player’s need to be making their own decisions.
This led me back to an old favorite. The Savage Worlds Combat Survival Guide.
This was where I went before I decided that I needed to mind map out my ideas. When I looked at this grid I saw the brilliance behind the decision making here. Look at these prompts they use.
Problem - What am I having an issue with as a player?
And… - What am I or my team pretty good at or able to currently do?
Then Try To…. - What is the game mechanic that will allow me to do something?
These three prompts alone can open up a lot of ideas. So where did this lead for me?
You can see that my answer to this started to naturally become more of a Mind Map. But this is not is not my first draft. Unfortunately I did not save that, I added onto it. What I can remember though is the frustration that my first draft was very singular in nature. I didn’t have a lot of options for players. This was supposed to be a highly tactical game! What was also frustrating at first was the the problem itself felt very singular. The goal to every problem was just Reduce the Pressure Die.
Let me quickly tell you a bit about the Pressure System so that the statement “Reduce the Pressure Die” makes sense.
The main resolution system in my game is a contested roll. You have an ability or attribute that is going to be represented by a die (d4-d10). You would roll this die against a Pressure Die (d4-d12). If you are able to roll higher or equal to the Pressure Die you have a desired outcome you want.
The Damage you as a player are going to be able to do to a bad guy is also directly proportional to how much you are able to beat the Pressure Die. Your attribute roll is an 8 and the Pressure Die roll is a 3. You just did 5 damage. This speeds up turns dramatically, but here in lies the initial problem I had. The solution to every problem seemed to just be “Reduce the Pressure Die”. The smaller the Pressure Die the better chance you have to hit and do damage.
However, this was me only looking at the first and third prompts.
Problem - “I can’t hit the target”, “I can’t do enough damage”
Then Try To - “reduce the pressure die”
When I started to brainstorm out the middle prompt “And…”, and using the Savage Worlds Guide as a reference, things got much more interesting.
I started to consider different character types, attribute types, player scenarios. I started to ask myself “If I had a high mobile character how would I want to solve this?”. Things started to fall into place for me, and the ability to Mind Map out my options was the lynch pin. I needed to visualize it, not just brain storm or theorize it.
From this exercise I realized a lot of things!
I was probably going to need to have specific Weaknesses on all monster designs so that players could use knowledge as a way to discover ways to reduce the Pressure Die.
I needed to come up with the Cluster system as a simplistic way to have tactical concepts like flanking be included in the game without running into the issues that 5e has (the dreaded conga line).
I will need a simple Cover system that people can use to avoid ranged attacks.
I will need a way for people to mitigate having a really bad Saving Throw.
For Every System?
Is this style of design for every system? I’m going to argue, Yes. BUT! Its not necessary for every system’s combat system. It’s probably necessary for every system’s main mechanic. What are you trying to accomplish with your game, so how do you actually get that done.
Here is the Mind Map for most OSR style games. The math is already set, the actions you have on your turn is pretty much just Attack. This means that you as a player are in charge of what you are going to do. This is a totally awesome game design! You can have a ton of fun with this. It’s just not the game design that I’m going for in the Pressure System. But if I were to map out the resource management aspect of some of these OSR games it might look different. If I were to map out the Exploration aspect in some of these games it might also look different.
So I hope that helps. It definitely helped me to talk through it, and go through this process. If you are interested in the app that I use for doing Mind Maps it’s Obsidian. This is my app of choice for pretty much everything, and the images above are using it’s Canvas mode.
See you guys next week!
-Jface
Thanks, it helps put things into perspective.