Category: Design & Development

In the last design post about conflict we discussed some of the inspirations and goals we had for the conflict systems when we started building the rules for Clockwork: Empire. To recap, they were:

1. One unified conflict system to cover both physical and social conflict
2. Mechanics that let players have real control over how they chose to participate, and for their choices to matter
3. Conflict needs to stay fluid and support storytelling
4. No hand-waving; work on it until it works.

With this post we want to dig into those points in more depth, particularly the first two. At first blush, those ideas look like they might fight each other, as the vast majority of rpgs out there have very deep and sometimes quite complicated systems to cover physical conflict, and handle social activities with one or two abstract tests that work or fail based on a single test. We wanted to avoid that lopsidedness to give players meaningful options to resolve (or start) conflicts in either or both areas. Also, if you build a character that’s a silver-tongued schemer they should have a chance to shine and face real challenges in their chosen arena just as much as the army officer engaged in fight against a deadly foe.

The basic test mechanics were easy enough to keep equivalent, but looking at how we would find parity between convincing someone and wounding them was a bit trickier. Early versions of the rules had physical Guard and social Guard exactly equivalent: starting Guard was calculated from a trait combination and was then worked down, and once it was down the target could be wounded (physical) or convinced/persuaded (social). Although that system worked to an extent, we saw a lot of lopsidedness when folks that were more physically focused could be quickly convinced of things, which doesn’t track to reality. So, per rule #4, we went through a lot more playtesting and refined things down to the Disposition mechanic. The fundamental rules are the same as working through Guard in physical conflict – choose a trait combination and test against the target’s social defense – but rather than having a static Guard, allowing players to set their own starting Dispositions allowed the opportunity for players to give a mechanical expression to their characters’ thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. With that one tweak, we were able to keep an unified approach in a way that supported roleplaying, and, moreover, gave more weight to characters’ positions and provide creative players with lots of considerations for possible conversational approaches to use in conflict that might help set better starting Dispositions. Letting characters set their starting Dispositions and requiring multiple tests to successfully convince/persuade a target also made sure that narrators weren’t robbing players of agency: it required real, concerted effort to change their minds, and on the flip-side, it would require real effort to change the minds of npcs.

Having met the goal of rule #1, we took a hard look at how those systems could give players options since the mechanics were equivalent. One problem we saw in other systems that we wanted to avoid was that characters who were more socially focused often suffer disadvantages or become sidelined when they’re involved in physical fights. As with many other problems, the answers came by looking at reality. In physical conflict situational awareness and threat assessment are critical in keeping yourself safe – keeping your Guard up – and distractions and feints can both work through your Guard and leave you vulnerable to the real heavy hitters. Feinting lets you mix a social Attribute and a physical Skill, such as Presence + Fencing, to get your opponent in a bad spot by leaving themselves exposed. Purely social attacks such as Presence + Command allow you to distract an opponent and drop their physical Guard, or even change their Disposition to surrendering. This way every character has a range of options in physical conflict and can make a difference in the outcome.

One of the greatest moments at our GenCon games came in the final scene of Idle Hands when the player running Sgt. Matheson and the one running Ms. Ramsay (both brand new players with no prior experience in Clockwork) cooperated in a series of three successive social attacks to convince one of the antagonists to surrender – even though they hadn’t yet been wounded. The parity between the systems gave people more tactical options and multiple ways to resolve the fight, and a realistic way to wrap up conflict without requiring everyone on one side or the other to wind up dead (that does tend to go poorly with the authorities, after all).

The next article will cover Clockwork: Empire’s unique initiative system and fluid play options. Until then be well and have fun, and keep an eye out for some very important announcements in the next few weeks.

Best,

Than

This is the first of a short series of design posts discussing different aspects of the conflict system in Clockwork: Empire.

All stories rely on conflict. Without the clash of arms and struggle of ideas and ideals there is no risk, and no point.

Many people have written and thought as much, and that’s hardly an unique insight when it comes to games. Most games are at their heart specialized conflicts between players: the rules are there to make the conflict safe. At their best, role-playing games can blur the lines between real and imagined conflict and build real passion and spirit into meaningful, memorable experiences.

Exploring what conflict does in a game is very meaningful to us because dissatisfaction with how other games handled conflict was one of the first motivations we had for designing the rules and mechanics that grew into Clockwork: Empire. So many games present incredible settings and have the potential to play host to amazing and memorable stories but have rules that make systems for conflict solely into systems for combat. Disagreements, persuasion, and opinions are often either left out entirely, or they and anything else approaching social are solely the subject of GM fiat. Those few systems that do include mechanics for social interactions almost always reduce it to a matter of a single die roll or limit it to a momentary bluff or distraction. I’d prefer not to dwell on any that have social “hit points.”

That isn’t to say that we don’t like other games: quite the opposite. With decades of combined gaming experience, everyone at Reliquary has played games of all sorts with each other, and we’ve laughed and cursed in equal measure at fickle dice and fantastic, unlikely success. What pushed us to look at conflict differently was that so many of the memorable moments had nothing to do with the “story” of a combat but depended instead on a good or bad random number. We wanted to change that.

With Clockwork: Empire, we wanted to build mechanics that supported a story, and gave players real options to meaningfully impact the game that depended on their plans and improvisations in the thick of things, rather than on a particular bit of math or a special rule for their character. We wanted players to make characters that can actually talk themselves out of (or into) fights. We wanted a system where thoughts and opinions mattered just as much as bullets and blades. The critical design goals we kept in mind were:

1. One unified conflict system to cover both physical and social conflict
2. Mechanics that let players have real control over how they chose to participate, and for their choices to matter
3. Conflict needs to stay fluid and support storytelling
4. No hand-waving; work on it until it works.

In the next few weeks we’ll have a series of posts to look at those design goals in more detail, social conflict in the game, and antagonists. If you have any particular questions or aspects you’d like covered in detail let us know in the comments or on the forums.

Best,

Than