Hammercalled, Talents, and Mechanical Spheres
One of the things that I feel strongly about in games is the role that mechanics play in drawing out a narrative. They exist to resolve conflict, so whenever you have a mechanic it needs to be meaningful and powerful.
And one of the design philosophies I'm working toward with Hammercalled is flexible cores with per-character customization. Combat works primarily by having characters choose their preferred style with gear selections, then having them simply attack and/or move each turn.
Because the majority of this is pre-made, we reduce the on the fly decisions and math a good deal, allowing play to remain fluid and quick.
One of the downsides, however, is that this means that characters can quickly feel "samish" or begin to lack depth. After all, if you've already chosen your style in combat, what's left?
Author's note: I believe that a good Game Master can keep combat interesting by using the basic framework to provoke decision making and tactical situations, but since the majority of tabletop RPG combat that I've seen tends to be centered around simple fights to the death, that's something I'll include in the GM advice section of the book, but not count on people following
One of the things that Hammercalled does is encourage players and characters to tweak their way of interacting with the mechanics, typically on as subtle a level as possible.
For instance, a character who gets a bonus Reaction and can use a Reaction to increase damage now has one more tactical decision to make, and this factors into their strategic decision making.
However, while combat is simply a good means of showing this, it's not the only place we go for this practice.
There's a Theme and Destiny system built into Hammercalled, basically a system that allows players to act in accordance with the setting's rules for storytelling–preferably established at Session 0 or in setting materials–to gain the ability to reroll, heal wounds, or generally advance the plot.
Right now, I think there are three clear mechanical spheres in Hammercalled:
I draw the distinctions between these because they involve a different set of resources, and they make significant modifications to the core mechanics.
Originally, I had planned for the game to include five spheres:
But I don't feel that's necessary now. It means that the development cycle of Hammercalled will be significantly shorter, and I might need to flesh out some stuff, but I'm honestly feeling like the more narrative approach to things like magic and supertech that I've been leaning toward has been positive.
What this means, however, is that these things serve as great bases for Talents.
I mentioned earlier that the focus of Hammercalled is having a few simple rules, and letting everyone choose their modifications to the rules. That's not necessarily the only focus of Talents (after all, some Talents simply improve a character's chance of success within the existing framework, or bolster their resources), but it is an important one.
As there are really three spheres of mechanics in Hammercalled, I want to make sure that characters have a fair amount of opportunities for doing so. This is where the talents come in.
I'm going to break down six of these Talents and their effects, to help explain what I mean.
Cooperative (1)
When you assist another character, or are assisted by another character, the roll gains a +5 bonus in addition to the regular effects.
Gear-Cautious (1)
The character takes good care of their Gear, decreasing the chance that gear will suffer Wear. Instead of suffering Wear on a result of 90 or above, they suffer Wear on a result of 93 or above. This talent may be taken twice; if so the Wear threshold increases to 96 or above.
Gear that is Unreliable instead suffers Wear on a roll of 83 or above, or 86 or above, depending on how many times a character has taken this talent.
These two talents focus on the core gameplay of Hammercalled. Both reflect a niche mechanic (rolls to help others or Gear degradation) and then go on to make them more or less important in a character's life.
By default, characters assisting another character use the highest relevant IAAT and Attribute between them, so gaining an additional +5 here is useful for furthering that optimization: two people trying to move a heavy boulder out of place definitely gain from this, because it is highly likely that neither have an IAAT that is relevant so the roll will be made against a raw Attribute rating (probably with a positive modifier to make it more likely to succeed).
Gaining more flexibility in this way makes that particular mechanic more attractive, which encourages players to use it more without making it encroach on other players.
Hammercalled has a risk/reward economy that is very heavily focused on Gear, so being able to use Gear more without worrying about it needing upkeep and repair is nice for characters.
Both of these Talents play into a sort of hammer and nail design idea, where players will choose courses of actions based on what they are equipped to do. If they are able to help others really well, or push their tools to the limits, they will be more prone to do so, lending a certain personality to their character. However, this could also run in the reverse way: they may be dependent on others for help, or simply not want to have their stuff get broken or used up. Because these talents reflect movements in the play space, the characters that take them have different motives for doing so.
Grappler (2)
When an enemy tries to lose the In Melee status with you, you may use a Reaction to roll against your Brawn+Specialization. If you succeed, they do not clear the location status effect.
Twist the Knife (1)
When you succeed on an attack made with a melee weapon, you may use a Reaction to add 2 damage to the attack.
The focus of these two talents is to make characters better at melee combat. I didn't intentionally choose two melee Talents: there are Talents that apply to both, but since melee combat tends to be a little more involved in the system than ranged combat, it's natural that characters gain talents.
Grappler is a simple counter to the standard way of play. Most of the time, a sane enemy is going to try to leave melee combat if they're outmatched. Grappler simply makes it so that the relatively free way of doing so (simply spending a Miscellaneous action) is contested by a roll, one made by a character who is likely to have a good chance of succeeding. Because this roll is entirely based on the PC's ability (or, if given to an NPC, the NPC's ability), it gives them a guaranteed course of action that allows them to become better at their specialization.
Twist the Knife is a more simple damage boost, but it represents another sink for the Reaction resource. Reactions are powerful for defensive actions (characters start with one each turn and can get up to three with the right build), but allowing them to be applied to combat makes these characters very dangerous, but also very attractive targets because they are likely to run out of Reactions before they get to defend.
One of the things that I really want to do with Talents is make it so that the characters who are built using Talents fulfill the battlefield niche they have claimed, and right now I think that the game is coming along nicely in that direction.
Aspiration (2)
The character may choose an Aspiration, which is a short statement of their intent that functions as a goal for them. When they act in accordance with their Aspiration, they may gain Destiny or bonuses as if they had acted in accordance with a Theme.
Blessed Stars (1)
When you use Destiny to reroll dice, you always choose which result is kept.
These two abilities are both interfacing with the Destiny and Theme mechanic. As the goal of Talents is to extend the amount of interesting things the character can do without adding a significant impact to the flow of play, I felt that it was important to focus on similarities.
Aspiration basically works like a character's personal Theme. This allows them to side-step some of the issues that they might have with the setting (e.g. a heroic character in a grim dark fantasy game), or receive a special reward for acting in line with their personality. I'm not sold that it uses good language to convey what it's supposed to be, but we're still early in playtesting.
Blessed Stars simply improves the Destiny mechanic, making it slightly more useful for the player. It doesn't add any new complexity or rolls, but does give a tangible positive effect. For instance, if you succeed but you don't get a high enough Margin to do what you really want, you might use Destiny in really high-risk/reward situations. However, there's a second benefit if you're doing something that's in line with a Theme and you earn a reroll, but you succeeded on your roll, you can't bank that reroll so you would otherwise likely let it go to waste to avoid messing up. In this case a very simple tweak yields a lot of utility.
One of my focuses in Hammercalled is to provide Talents that allow characters to expand to fill the gap between mechanics that are intended to be relatively simple. Rather than building many complex systems, I want to have three relatively stable and co-equal systems, then build upon that to make a full-featured game that doesn't take twenty hours to pick up.
