Cinco: Thoughts

Over the last couple of weeks.

Features?

I'm not confident that features are, in the end, very interesting relative to the 'weight' of understanding and using them. The basic feat model is derived from hard-coded spell descriptions and combat maneuvers. Although they can be extended to other game modes, such as exploration or downtime, they contribute to those modes' increasing mechanization. This means you spend more time looking at what buttons you can press for special moves, and also means by picking one feat you risk de-optimizing your character in other game modes than the one you prioritize. The decisions feel uninteresting, and seem to actively detract from characterization.

Let's go over the resolution procedure, and see how it generates character actions driven by players rather than the book:

Aspects represent your character’s origin, culture, profession, faction, or any other qualities which make them who they are. When your character tries something unlikely or dangerous, you make an aspect check with the number of dice below:

+D if the average person has a shot at success.
+D if one or more of your aspects applies to the situation.
+D from spending inspiration or triggering certain feats.

The highest number thrown indicates the situation’s outcome:

• Success (5–6): The character is in total control.
• Bargain (3–4): The character compromises control.
• Catastrophe (1–2): The character loses control.

A typical character starts with 2 aspects corresponding to their origin and background. Characters may gain new ones as they develop throughout a campaign.

Let's try picking a lock. The average person has a shot (+D), but you could make a case for the following aspects to apply with different potential consequences for each:

• Burglar: Good at picking locks, quietly. The lock could jam if it goes wrong.
• Goliath: Break the door down. You could alert whoever is on the opposite side.
  
• Wizard of Ice: Freeze and break the lock. The shards could hurt you, or whoever breaks it.

This means, if any of the above cases are agreed to be fair, each of the players could gain +D for a base total of 2D to roll. When a task is more likely to succeed than not, then, aspects serve to weave your character's motifs into the fabric of the fiction, as well as to negotiate the implications of success or the consequences of failure.

When a task, however, is more or less impossible for a regular person, aspects unlock actions or approaches which make the impossible probable. For example: only a burglar can hide from a searchlight; only an ice wizard can freeze someone/thing; the goliath probably illustrates a trade-off between aspects which make you better at routine actions versus aspects which straight-up give you special powers that aren't as often useful or widely applicable.

I find this more interesting and engaging than mechanical moves? Allows you to better inhabit your character, I think. Add to that (rarer) inspiration tokens which you can use on your roll or someone else's, as well as reading the dice rolled less rigidly (treat as above, as binary, as "higher is better", or even as an index on a table).

Travel Roll

This one is less play-theoretical: to free travel of procedural considerations, assuming a hex map or point graph where the basic unit of time is the day. Why not roll 2d6 for how many days pass without an encounter? Then you can count rations in terms of weeks, and expect 1 random encounter every week.

The above could translate to hours? Although on that scale, you need to think about spending however many hours resting each day, whereas on the daily scale you can have a more fluid experience (probably spend 1 day at a time resting).