AprilTTRPGMaker Day 6: Favorite game mechanic?
Sorcerer's complex conflict system. It works like this:
- Everyone declares their action, freely and openly.
- Dice are rolled and everyone goes from highest to lowest single die.
- THIS IS THE IMPORTANT ONE: If you are the target of an action before your action happens you face a choice: Keep your action, and defend with only 1 die OR abort your action and defend with full dice.
- Everyone who has taken their action or aborted defends against all future actions with full dice.
This system actually makes it feel like everything is happening at the same time and not in a your-turn-my-turn round-robin fashion. The choice in Step 3 also often provides great role-playing opportunities. There are times I've taken the one die because it was important to me to demonstrate my characters total focus and commitment to his action even though I knew that was going to hose me.
There are only two other games I know of that come close to this feeling:
- Burning Wheel with it's 3 ahead scripted rock-paper-scissors actions. 2) Riddle of Steel with it's secret attack/defend die throw. Hint: In both systems two people attacking each other is bad for everyone.
Don't quote me on this, because it's been a bit since I've played it last, but I think 7th Sea had a conflict resolution similar to it.
If I remember correctly, you can use two of your initiative dice to defend against an incoming attack, so you could hurt your upcoming attack potential in order to defend yourself.