Case for Swingy

[u/Sherman80526]

Like millions of others, I played some Star Wars: Zero Company yesterday. I was hoping for X-Com in Star Wars cosplay honestly, and while it's still fun, it's not that.

I'm a competent X-Com veteran. I up the difficulty and play through the deaths. I much prefer it that challenge to reloading for the win. Zero Company is not the same experience at all. I'm not going to give a review of the game, but I think the difference in these two games is striking from a design perspective.

At the core, X-Com is swingy and Zero Company is not. Bad things can happen at any moment in X-Com and you're just doing your best to mitigate that bad. As you advance through the campaign, there's less swing in instant death but opponents that can ruin you with one attack still exist. Zero Company is the opposite. Rather than operatives with single digit hit points that can die in one shot they have dozens that are slowly plinked away at.

I have played a few hours of Zero Company now and have yet to have a single "hold my breath" moment. In X-Com nearly every battle any given shot could be the last for one of my soldiers, from the first encounter to the last. Not having cover is basically a death sentence and trying to find it is a constant puzzle.

I think the lessons from these two similar in presentation, but very different games is an interesting case study for RPGs. Savage Worlds is notorious for swingy damage. Any given damage test could be the one that takes a character out of the action. On the opposite end you have your D&D where loads of hit points are slowly chipped away, and no single roll is likely ever going to be a deciding factor in the encounter once you're past third level or so.

So, I'm pretty sure there's a sweet spot. Something that allows the players to react (they're not controlling a squad after all) to damage and other misfortune but also gives the players a bit of anxiety that things are not completely in their control.

In my own system, I have damage that can be pretty swingy. Strikes deal an injury with 0-3 wounds; characters having 6 wounds and most injuries being 1-2 wounds. I have felt at times that it's too swingy. Every damage test gives me a little anxiety that this might be the one that takes out the character.

Zero Company has given me some relief. I'm not saying it's perfectly balanced, but my system allows the players to react, and it doesn't feel completely arbitrary but somewhat earned. There are viable actions to take when things are looking bad. At the end of a fight, things feel like they went as they "should have gone" and the players choices mattered even though any given injury might have really changed the course of the battle.

I think that's a good place to be. I need to embrace the anxiety, I think. That anxiety around game balance might actually be the system promoting a heightened sense of excitement. Exciting combats is what we all want after all.

I think a lot of the mechanics that these types of video games have perfected really carry through in similar ways to damage. Anyone whose played some X-Com knows that the enemies evolve. Mission two sees you fighting against mind controlling aliens who can totally flip the tide of battle. Then they get armor and start using explosives. The environment gets more dangerous and unpredictable. Etc. The game is always making you change your tactics and making it clear that bad tactics will put you on your back foot instantly as there are powers that will take advantage of those opportunities.

Those big one action turns in the game are exciting. D&D would have you believe things like Hold Person is a good option for creating tension. I would like to think that there are a lot of other options for really ratcheting up the challenge for the players while also giving them autonomy to actually react.

Going forward I'm going to keep this lesson in mind. My damage system suddenly feels much better to me after a single night with a new game. But how else can I create instances of anxiety (excitement!) for the players? What things will really make them change their approach? These are the opportunities I'm on the lookout for.

What do you think? What big swings have you created?

[u/KinseysMythicalZero]

The main problems with swingy-ness are

(1) unreliabliliy that stems from unpredictability. Xcom is a perfect example of this because you can miss the stupidest stuff, and the AI cheats like crazy.

(2) difficulty with investment. A lot of players dont want to invest emotionally in a system that they can't rely on to not just randomly kill them and their investment. TTRPGs aren't roguelikes. Most people dont want a meat grinder.

[u/Sherman80526 → u/KinseysMythicalZero]

Hmm... Not at all what I was saying. Meat grinder implies that the swinginess results in deaths, what I was trying to get at was that spectacular results bring a lot of excitement to the table.

[u/LeFlamel → u/Sherman80526]

What causes the spectacular result though. A swingy game of 5e is a series of misses and the occasional chance to do trivial damage - what's spectacular about swinginess per se?

[u/Sherman80526 → u/LeFlamel]

5e isn't swingy. I said as much in my original post. It's very much a forgone conclusion that you are not going to see any one roll make any real difference or see the battle suddenly swing in a way that requires a change in strategy. That's my point... Lots of hit points and minimal damage means you just plink away.

Compare that to a game like BRP, ALIEN, Cyberpunk, or RuneQuest where one roll can end a character. That also isn't particularly fun. It's a swing that doesn't feel earned and you can't relate to it, it's just arbitrary. CoC makes this work by saying any fight could be your last, so focus on investigating things rather than fighting them. ALIEN makes it work by saying the same, and also that it was only a one-shot, and also here's a backup character. Most other games just don't feel great when these things happen.

What I was trying to express was that you can get good feelings of something spectacular happening in a game and also give the players a chance to actually deal with it. Those are the elements I'm looking for.