Stamina Mechanics in 2019

[JigokuBosatsu]

There are already multiple threads on stamina mechanics but I didn't want to necro.

I recently stumbled on a Dark Souls ttrpg called "Fires Far Away," and while I find most of it bogged down with way too many stats (like the game itself) it had a stamina mechanic that I wanted to run by you folks. Not sure if I want to call it "interesting" but maybe... "reasonable"?

PCs have a dicepool called the "Stamina Bar", which is rolled every round. Initiative is determined by total value of the roll- mooks have static values and elites/bosses have their own set of dice to be used as "interrupts" for big fuck-off attacks. The Stamina Bar dice are expended on attacks, defenses, spells, etc., either by spending dice values for your action's cost, or by burning dice outright regardless of the value, which I think is reserved for special attacks.

As I said, I think that the game as a whole suffers from adhering too close to the DS numbers, but on first glance one bit of it seemed nice: stamina costs for big fantasy weapons aren't really that much higher than costs for punier weapons. They are gated by strength requirements, though, and I like the implication that if you are beefy enough to wield and swing around a skull-shaped mace the size of your torso, then your attacks aren't going to instantly exhaust you.

So what do we think of this? Hackable for a better system? I'm not sure if this Stamina Bar is lifted from another RPG, and I'm not going to search suptg to find out. Any other stamina mechanics out there these days?

[angelfromanotherpin]

IME, stamina bars mostly boil down to 'do you use the last of your bar for one more attack or save it for a defense action?' That's expressible with basic action economy stuff and there's no need for all the extra accounting.

[JigokuBosatsu]

basic action economy stuff

Would you mind giving a ferinstance?

[angelfromanotherpin]

As a very simple frex, consider a 3.5e hack which let you use your Swift action either to make a single attack, or to 'dodge roll,' (which would give attacks against you a miss chance until your next turn), or to 'raise shield' or whatever. That's functionally the choice that a stamina bar gives you.

[OgreBattle]

Could have something where oversized weapons take up more of the action economy to strike with like...

swift+standard: a 3 meter long sword
full round: a pillar

stamina to swing a dagger vs a greatsword seems way too granular for tabletop RPG's though.

You familiar with Riddle of Steel's combat pool? http://tros.thewestwinds.net/index.php?title=Combat

It's kinda like a 'stamina pool', skill with weapon, character awareness rolled into one. A nifty thing they do is your pool only refreshes after two passes are done, so you could go all out for one big attack in the 1st pass but that can be countered by someone using the 1st pass to be super defensive, then using what pool they've got left over 2nd pass for a counterattac.

----

Another way to look at it is "interesting choices to make during combat, and consequences to consider" instead of just "how tiring is it to swing a thing"

[Username17]

PCs have a dicepool called the "Stamina Bar", which is rolled every round. Initiative is determined by total value of the roll- mooks have static values and elites/bosses have their own set of dice to be used as "interrupts" for big fuck-off attacks. The Stamina Bar dice are expended on attacks, defenses, spells, etc., either by spending dice values for your action's cost, or by burning dice outright regardless of the value, which I think is reserved for special attacks.

That doesn't sound remotely like a stamina system. It sounds like a variable initiative system like 1st edition Shadowrun married to a variable shot cost system like Feng Shui.

But more than anything it sounds exactly like Dead of Winter, which is a board game.

-Username17

[JigokuBosatsu]

OgreBattle- I have looked at Riddle of Steel (and Blade of the Iron Throne) and there is a lot I like about their systems though they're a bit crunchy for my attention span.

Frank- Yeah, I think they tried to port over the stamina system from Dark Souls but also tacked the initiative thing on top of it because reasons. I'll have to check out Dead of Winter.

[erik]

That does sound just like Dead Or Winter (you get a number of dice, more if you have extra survivors, roll em and various actions require certain die rolls and others just need any die in general). I’m a fan of using board game mechanics as the backbone of rpg systems tho. If it’s robust enough to be fair in a board game then the mechanic has some legs and can be repurposed.

[Username17]

I rather like Dead of Winter, but it's sufficiently difficult that I do not think that the traitor mechanic adds anything to the game. Everyone having secret missions plus the overall colony survival is totally sufficient - the traitor goals should be removed from the deck. I haven't played the expansion with the rival colony and have no idea whether that works or not.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

It's been a while, but doesn't the game have a no-traitors-but-higher-general-difficulty mode?

[erik]

My first time playing DoW it was an xmas present of my brother’s and he got frustrated at trying to read the rules and decided we’d figure it out by playing. What a cluster fuck that was. I continued to read rules on other people’s turns over his protestation. He apologized to me months later when he tried playing with his California friends and discovered that it wasn’t just me being difficult asking about what happens if I try X. Lots of things weren’t intuitive but now that I know how to play I cannot even remember what was so hard as I’ve been able to explain it to noobs without hassle.

I don’t mind the traitor mechanic since we usually have a pretty easy go of it. Tho some crossroads can really fuck ya. It definitely can suffer from quarterbacking to complete objectives when there’s an expertise gap in players. We had a traitor once who never betrayed us because she kept following the suggestions of a kibitzing player.

[PrometheanVigil]

Rather than spamming the forum with plugs, I'm just gonna put this here. My system is designed around this kind of thing because the fittest warrior and the most corpulent scribe having the same level of agency and athleticism in battle is just ludicrous.

[Usamimi]

Fires Far Away was created with the expectation that players would create their own content and expand the game, similar to open source software.

Stamina pools are determined by the Endurance stat. 1-5 = 4 dice, 6-10 = 5 dice, etc.

A single stat determining the number of actions a character can perform is generally considered poor design.

Character stats are chosen by template. The Explorer has strictly inferior stats to the Knight, but supposedly makes up for this by gaining better beginning equipment.

There is a trait system consisting of positive traits (Licences) and negative traits (Flaws). Licences can be purchased on level up or at character creation. Flaws can be taken for additional AP at a one-to-one rate. However, flaws are extraordinarily poorly balanced. -1 to any given stat is worth the same number of AP as having half range on all ranged and magic attacks.

Each character has 3 significant Memories. When they die as a human they become Hollowing. Upon dying while Hollowing, they must lose either a Memory or their Name. A character who has lost their name can no longer become human. If a character cannot sacrifice either, they permanently become a Hollow.
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