Respec is a base game mechanic
Posted: Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:04 am
Respec is a basic game mechanic
Respect the Respec
I don't think I've gone into this detail on this. But I had one coffee (2nd in 7 days WOOO) on a trip to Sydney and when I came home this happened...
What?
Respec. That thing where you take an existing character build, and change it.
A term, and practice, I think still most commonly used in video games, though still in the RPG genre.
Definitely a thing we could do in TTRPGs. Definitely a thing some of us do. Probably a thing we should do more.
I’m going to tell my little story about my journey with Respec mechanisms.
Why I think Respec is already in more game systems than people realize.
How I think embracing that fact, then working from that pre-existing point to design your systems with a better ground up acknowledgment of Respec as a formal integrated game mechanic can produce a raft of potential benefits.
A more traditional view of Respec
Traditionally Respec is seen as something outside of the system, meta-game at best. And it is seen generally as a “correction”.
Usually a player has changed their mind, decided a previously taken option in their character build was a bad idea for whatever reason and wants to just… change it.
Typically then the whole process is handled informally out of system because the system rarely has true (acknowledged) integrated respec of any form let alone a convenient one. The GM and the players either “figure something out” (let it happen) or don’t (which is probably all in all the wrong decision).
Traditional Respec is pretty OK. If a player feels they would be happier changing something on their character sheet then, within reason, you should probably let them, most of the time this is only going to make the game better for everyone.
But I think traditional concepts of Respec and its uses overlooks how we are already using it as a game mechanic without acknowledging it, and how we could, and probably should be using it as a game mechanic.
My brief Respec Journey
In the beginning… it was the early 90s I was 12, played 2nd Edition advanced and my biggest contribution to home brewing my rules was procedural dungeon generation (not that I knew to call it that). So yeah, in the beginning I had no idea what Respec was even as a nameless concept. Well that was a wasted paragraph.
So anyway at some point I first started allowing Respec pretty much the moment I encountered it if not sooner. Not that I encountered it much. If anything I was offering it to Players more often than they wanted it, sometimes I wanted them to Respec… something… more than they did. Because god damnit change that one thing and fix your character already, right?
But I didn’t think about it much. I didn’t do it much. And I think importantly. Players not only didn’t ask for it much they pretty much never asked for a FULL respec of an existing character, or any major respec like a class change. They would if the rare event occurred prefer a straight up new character and I think there are reasons for that, and that this reluctance has implications, maybe even useful ones. Which I will get into later. (edit: forgot to, now it doesn't fit right, maybe in a reply)
At some point I moved from class based level systems to classless points based systems. I think this is important in relevance to Respec and it’s applications. Again, it’s worth it’s own point later. But in moving to classless mechanics Respec became immediately more valuable and I used and offered it more.
And since all the remaining points on my journey are also important headings in their own right lets finish the journey with more headings…
That thing about why Classes Probably Shouldn’t Respec
So. I think Respec and the applications of it I have here probably has relevance to most complex class based systems.
I just think it has MORE relevance to classless points based systems. Basically because the more changeable moving parts a character has, the more customizable they were in the first place the more they might benefit from being changed.
And I think classes themselves are an example of a bit of an outlier option that probably is big enough and SHOULD be well designed enough it shouldn’t respec most of the time.
A good class system, even a fairly mediocre one, should make it pretty hard for a player to “pick the wrong class for their character” and in game story relevant class change… probably isn’t THAT much of a thing.
At the very least, I think that classes probably fall mostly outside of my ideas here. Pretty much all the other small character build options surrounding classes in a class based system however are definitely basically the same as all the small character build options in a classless system and ARE relevant and applicable to this thread.
And Classless Systems probably need Respec even more
The advantages of a player “fixing” something they, or everyone (or maybe even anyone) sees as wrong with their character are fairly universal.
But when you have a classless system with significantly greater customization or just as potential choices in character building ramp up with any mechanical complexity to character builds… mistakes can be made, and probably more of them and more often.
So with more choice, comes more need to allow people to change their decisions. Respec can at some point change from a minor luxury, into a key necessity. And anything that is a necessity, probably needs to be covered at least in your written informal guidelines if not your formal rules directly.
Respec From Level 0
Personally something I have enjoyed doing and made a focus of my early game rules for a while now is in game organic character building, and doing it from “level 0” or whatever equivalent zero starting point you want to imagine.
Dropping players straight into a game, and letting them decide their character builds as it is relevant. Letting them decide “I want to be the Strong guy” when the moment that would be relevant pops up. Allowing them to get a moment in the spotlight and reinforce their choice with that as a positive reward.
Breaking up character creation and spreading it out over enjoyable game play that engages the whole group instead of having everyone sit there and work on their characters for X tens of minutes before anything fun happens.
There are a few problems with this method. One is the most basic problem organic characters face in general. Organic character builds are much more likely to result in a choice a player later wants to fix. All the more so if it happens during an organic in game character creation event. But it still applies if you are encouraging Organic character development later on as well.
So. Respec is called for to support organic character builds in general, and level 0 in game organic character creation especially so.
Also, if you acknowledge Respec as a formal thing that happens you can also try and mechanically grapple with one of the other problems of a level 0 organic character.
What are their relevant traits BEFORE they select any? Just about any system worth calling itself one is going to have a few divide by zero errors when faced with a character that hasn’t picked any selectable options yet trying to interact with game mechanics.
But with a formal acknowledgement that Respec definitely is a thing that happens you can use Respec to provide literal place holder options.
My own system definitely cares about target keyword match ups. These are definitely affected by your Good and Bad trait selections. But the ‘level 0” character… hasn’t decided yet. Well. Fine, they can have place holder traits called things like “Unknown Good Trait” that lets us have some formal interactions with them, because we have acknowledged that we can and WILL Respec that trait later.
And we can extend those place holders to whatever else is mechanically necessary. Like a physical defense ability that just give us our equivalent of a viable if somewhat poor AC called “Default Dodge” or something until the player decides what sort of proper starter option they rely on for their physical defenses.
There are limits where it can get weird. We perhaps don’t really want someone suddenly turning out to be a mermaid after they all trek on foot through a desert and climb a mountain, but even that could be overlooked with some straining and you CAN just set a limit and say “if you want these options… pick them earlier…”
In the mean time Respec means to whatever extent you decide is acceptable, you don’t need to pick straight away, and you CAN change your mind about an impulsive pick later. That being pretty much the vital foundations you need to make true organic character development viable.
Suddenly Shape Changing
So. A fairly complex fantasy RPG cares about physical abilities and body shape stuff.
A traditional RPG cares about Races, Monsters, Monstrous abilities, physical Attributes. Mine has equivalents to all those things, most fantasy RPGs do.
We all care when someone is a werewolf and the sorceress sometimes turns into a wolf monster.
We all care that someone has polymorph other or an equivalent and might turn someone ELSE into a wolf monster, or a perfectly round frog that makes squeaky noises.
While trying to wrap my head around not just representing physical form related abilities, but also how the hell to represent changing them, I eventually came to terms with what I think I would consider my first encounter with Respec mechanics “in the wild”.
Taking your sorceress character sheet and swapping it for wolf monster, or fully or partially, IS a character Respec. One that no one really asked for, but is there by virtue of what the game needs to do to mechanically represent desirable in game events and abilities.
The implications remained relatively minimal. Pretty much all acknowledging shape changing as a Respec meant was that I could draft up some underlying Respec rules and have Shape Changing effectively refer to them.
And the only real benefit of that was that I could have some commonality between a PC that decided they wanted to swap out that one sword skill they took and the PC that was somehow swapping in a wolf bite.
It also meant I could give out a rapid in combat Respec like turning into a wolf monster and limit them to a resulting Respeced character of the same over all value and have a fairly lazy to write but entirely functional and highly customizable alternative form ability to give out.
I feel though that it was still fairly trivial.
Respec as Retraining
As trivial as shape changing as respec was, it did result in me firmly making Respec a part of the formal mechanics. And I extended that to options beyond body shape/physical form related ones.
Initially this was in the form of Skills.
I wanted a relatively organic and complex system for obtaining new skills, and some kind of at least semi formal if not entirely formal “Training” mechanic.
With Respec already acknowledged by the system, it was fairly trivial to have the Training mechanism acknowledge Respec.
Adding a new Skill is sort of a Respec, so why not also use the same process to change an old one?
And then copy paste for Spells because as far as I was concerned, they are just basically magical flavor Skills.
I still think it was a fairly trivial benefit, but it was another benefit, and these things add up.
Items Are Respec
Just about everyone wants their system to represent items. And not only has my work been no exception I have been moving in ever more materialistic directions since my Barbie Mansions experiments and it has been fantastic.
Once you represent items game mechanically you have a set of options that do game mechanically relevant things.
And it’s a set of Options that can, at least certainly should, be easily changed.
In the simplest terms lets consider a sword, and an axe. Lets give them different bonuses vs different targets. We do not care which. All that matters is they are different and would be better in different contexts.
Some fights are a good fight to hold a sword in.
Some fights are a good fight to hold an axe in.
We definitely want mechanics that let you change whether your character is holding a sword or an axe, maybe, probably, even very quickly and in combat.
And that’s a Respec right there. And it definitely happened in combat time. And it had a formal in game time/action cost. And sure, shape changers were already doing that, but swapping a weapon is WAY more common.
Having an item system is something a huge proportion of systems are going to do. And it’s Respec. This is one of the reasons I’m saying not just that you should make Respec a formal thing in your game, I’m telling you it already is.
Anyway. Acknowledging this, treating inventory management as a form of Respec, was the next step in getting to where I currently am on Respec in TTRPG design.
But Wait. Respec vs Match Ups?
Maybe you give out Respec informally “In down time”.
Maybe you give it out for free instantly at any time (or hopefully almost any time since applying no limits at all is going to be a minor problem in a moment).
Maybe you give out Respec like I think you probably should, with some (in some cases quite small) formalized mechanical costs (like an Action to change active weapons).
But. Then you have a “problem”.
Someone is going to complain you just broke RPS balance.
They will say “If you can just Respec then everyone WILL Respec and always have advantageous Match Ups for all encounters!”.
Now. That’s wrong on first principles because of the whole RPS does nothing thing. But there IS more to it than just that.
We cannot “break” the number of advantageous match ups characters have because that’s entirely unpredictable and outside of rules design control anyway.
But we certainly CAN consider how Respec can interact with having advantageous encounters or not, and how to better craft your Respec tools to allow you represent these things and encourage enjoyable gaming outcomes with them.
First we can acknowledge 3 types of Encounter.
1) An encounter where players have full knowledge within whatever time/cost they require to Respec as much as necessary to gain the best advantage.
2) An encounter where players have no knowledge and no time/cost in which to Respec at all and may or may not randomly have an advantage.
3) An encounter where players can learn as they go and also Respec as they go in order to better adapt for some advantage.
Then we can look at what player interaction with those encounters looks like.
1) Players are planning and engaging with game events, researching information, and spending time gathering equipment and other relevant options. This is good. This is player engagement. This is EXACTLY what we should be aiming for.
2) Players are plunged into an unexpected encounter they may or may not be disadvantaged in. These things should happen sometimes. We can’t say how often, but it’s nice if the tools are there that this at least CAN be represented. Totally genuinely free and instant Respec at all times would somewhat undermine that. But applying any formalized limits or costs still makes it possible.
3) Players get to observe aspects of the Encounter, determine a better course of action, and adapt to it with choices. The fighter observers enemies resistant to his axe, so he spends a minor action cost to get out a sword. Effectively buffing his attacks for the remainder of the combat, at the minor cost of a minor equipment change. This is again, direct player engagement with game play events and then rewarding them for doing so. This is exactly what we should be aiming for. And formal in game Respec mechanics are what make it possible.
In fact “Golf bag fighter” with a bag of weapons for different encounters may be an exaggeration, but up to at least some point is actually a thing we definitely want to support.
Similarly viable golf bag WIZARDS with a bunch of spells for different encounters though… I mean we definitely want them in some form so what would be a good way…
BAM! Everythings an Item now!
OK. So this is a product in some form of the more extreme edge of what I’m doing with my rules lately.
And yeah. I’m treating basically everything as at least mechanically being similar with item management. Everything has monetary value (if not monetary cost) and it’s all about active options and inventories of available options. A lot of that goes beyond the scope of this Respec topic.
But keeping it simple. Here is the more basic version of the proposal.
Golf Bag Wizard, works almost exactly like Golf Bag Fighter.
Golf bag Fighter has a limited number of active weapons, and a bunch of other weapons in their item inventory that they CAN get out in combat to exchange for their active weapons, but at a formal cost. And yes. That’s a Respec.
Golf bag Wizard has a limited number of attack spells, and a bunch of other spells in their spell inventory that they CAN get out in combat to exchange for their active spells, but at a formal cost. Probably almost exactly the same formal cost as the Fighter pays to swap around active items. And again, yes that’s a Respec.
And even aside from training and retraining rules. Both of them probably have Skills. And maybe both of them know more Skills than they can have Active at once. So they have an inactive Skill inventory of sorts. And a list of Active Skills. And again, a similarly costed ability to switch out the Active skills with ones in skill inventory. Because why not? AND that’s a Respec.
Aaand the shapechanger has some sort of inventory of forms or physical form related options, and again a formally costed ability to swap them out. You could even do gradual and custom shape changing with this. And it’s Respec, and again, if not the exact same Respec then at least one that can be measured and costed in the same formalized scale.
Respec is items and inventory, everything is Items and inventory, everything is Respec. Simple enough?
Respec and Wide Character Builds
There are a few really rich benefits to treating everything like this and having at least minor in game respec from option inventories.
One of the biggest is fairly simple.
We might (and I personally definitely do) want to limit simultaneously Active game mechanical options on a character more than we want to limit how many options we make available.
You should be finding new weapons lying around all the damn time. And if swords are different to axes even if you just found a mace that is clearly inferior to your sword or axe… you probably SHOULD be able to carry it around on the off chance a “Maces Good” encounter pops up if you have some spare inventory space.
Wizards absolutely should be collecting all the spells they can. We just don’t want them being able to cast all of them at any time, without paying at least SOME formal cost.
Like a re-equip cost… like a Respec cost.
Formal in game partial Respec, priced at a point that is viable but noticeable in combat is way to put a mild but workable limit on active options. You don’t LOSE your ice bolt spell because you gained a fire ray spell, you just put it away for now and it costs you just a little something to get it back out, something which becomes part of an engaging game play interaction if you see a need to get it back out.
Wait, inventory management as a formal mechanic?
Yeah I said inventory management. And yes I am aware that can mean a lot of things in a lot of systems (and just for a lot of groups because groups often ignore inventory and encumbrance type rules and make up their own). Including no rules at all.
But I think using Inventory as the description of what your inactive options “Quick Respec” management looks like is a pretty reasonable way to put it, because I think most of the potential ways to manage Inventory, from “sure whatever” to “lets not go crazy” to “no really, there is a formal costed limit” are all potentially viable ways to decide to manage these lists of available, but not active, options.
If for no other reason than one flavor of these lists IS literally your item inventory.
But mostly because in the end we do not super care how many options you COULD have been ready to use. In a system correctly designed to account for this sort of Respec we only care about what you have ready to use RIGHT NOW, and how much it costs you to change to something else with the assumption that you change to something else because that would be beneficial.
Having an additional option on your inactive list might as well be free… because it might have actually been free. That mace you found ages ago, was just lying on the floor. That dodging skill you know was just something lying around from your early organic character build start before you decided it was much better to rely on a really large helmet instead. That suspiciously highly specific anti-demon spell was something the GM foisted on you during a bullshit cut scene event.
Should dagger guy be able to fit more separate dagger type attack profiles on his inactive options list than big sword guy can fit separate big sword attack profiles on his inactive options list? Does it even matter if he does?
It only takes ONE inactive option to potentially have an inactive option worth swapping out for. And what with RPS type encounter match ups being utterly unpredictable we have no idea whatsoever how many inactive options you need to have to basically “always” have a good one in reserve. And depending on uncontrollable encounter types, luck and good decision making, the Big Sword guy with one spare sword could easily end up taking it out more often than the dagger guy with 4 backup daggers takes any of those out.
We only care that when it happens, the quick swap cost itself was acceptable.
Respec and Disarming
It should be pretty clear at this point. I already regard any system that cares about your sword as having performed a forcible partial Respec on your character when someone disarms your sword off your character.
One of the minor but kinda nice advantages of formalized Respec where everything works a bit like items is you can have a better unified underlying treatment of disarming and disabling other options as well.
I think at the moment my preferred example is Disarming Spells. Once everything is (sort of) an item you only need a very simple option for your anti-magic spell-taker guy to be able to literally take spells off people (and maybe use them) in basically the same way that a sword-taker-guy would with a sword.
I mean, this is further facilitated by other aspects of my current system, like items and spells basically using the same sorts of resourcing mechanics, no base attribute dependence, virtually no proficiency system, and a few other things.
But at it’s core, to take a spell like it’s an item, its the Respec and option inventory mechanics that are the main thing that let this happen and let it happen in a simple unified standardized way.
Respec and the Specialization Problem
The specialization problem is present to some degree in any game where you introduce a choice in character builds, and is likely more of an issue the more choice you introduce. It isn’t a problem inherent to Respec, but it IS a problem more likely to exist in systems that would benefit more from having better Respec.
And someone is going to make the mistake of thinking Respec has anything much directly to do with it.
I’m going to use my own system as an example, just because it happens to have some divisions of ability types that (could have) left it very open to the Specialization problem and are pretty intuitive for the explanation.
When you select active options in my System they could be to do with different types of encounter. (Like Physical or Social) and they can be options that grant benefits related to Attack, or Defence.
A simple example of the Specialization problem would be loading too many (however many that might be) of your options into one encounter type, or more classically, all into one attack type at the cost of not investing in any other encounter type or defense options.
Certainly in a system where a “level 1” character probably has 7 active options… even with other mechanisms to limit the specialization problem a character who spreads their 7 options fairly evenly across the 6 available option types is going to have a hard time, very possibly a game breakingly hard time, being attacked by a character who invested all 7 options in physical attack.
And if the system allowed that then Respec could make it worse by ALSO allowing the same character to (who cares at this point what the cost would be) Respec into a character that instead invested all 7 options into Social attack. Letting them switch and use the specialization problem to dominate MORE encounter types if not, at that point almost all encounter types (I don’t have many broad types of encounter).
But the clue is in the 6 types of option the system offers. Because Respec could exacerbate this problem, but it can neither solve nor cause it.
Your system has to try and solve the problem with limitations somewhere else. Like mine, which MAKES you spread your option selections out fairly evenly among the types. With the “level 1” equivalent character having to buy one of each and only being left with 1 “wild card” to spend as a second of option of one of the types. Not a revolutionary solution to the specialization problem. But alarmingly more than most points based systems I have seen has even bothered trying.
Meanwhile a Respec system with the Active Option/Inactive Inventory setup can interact with limits like that to let you better support the player who DOES just keep picking up new weapons. It doesn’t matter if they picked up a total of 12 physical attack options in item form. It doesn’t even matter if they all somehow directly stack (they probably shouldn’t but whatever, this time they do) They only get to have 1-2 of them active because of the separate mechanic intended to limit the specialization problem, but they DO get to in some form have those additional options they wanted because of the inactive option inventory, AND even occasionally get to use them because they can Respec their active option selections in a viable manner.
And then it can also work like that with spells, skills, and crocodile teeth.
Unification of Option Types
By diving down this rabbit hole of formalized Respecing actions, semi-formal inactive option inventories, and the effective abstract itemization of skills, spells and monstrous abilities. I have ended up with what I think is one of the best benefits of this whole thing beyond the broad character build benefits.
A single unified system for important game mechanical character options, that doesn’t care (much) about the cosmetic typing of the option (item/spell/skill/body) but DOES care about managing how much relevant power you have access to by the type of activity you are engaging in and lets you usefully adjust your character regardless of the cosmetic typings of the options you are switching out in ways that have at least an underlying common mechanical base, and are sometimes just outright identical.
A character can swap out a sword to bring in a fire bolt spell or a crocodile bite or a martial arts technique and pay the same cost using the same mechanic and not worry about exceeding the formalized sane limit of how many physical attack options they should be allowed to use at once.
This is probably the biggest thing I am proud of about this whole endeavor.
I know it’s pretty simple. But, that’s the bit that makes it so good.
And also because it’s pretty simple, it’s potentially applicable in part, or in full, to a range of systems other than just my own.
And because it happens every time
Now que DeadDM or a counterpart once again declaring this is a trivial observation everyone always secretly knew all along (then proving via verbal diarrhea that they STILL don’t grasp any of it). Well. Didn’t see you posting about it in the last decade or two.
edit: And also que someone complaining that it's wrong of me to mention that I use the game mechanics that I advocate for as good decisions. And that somehow, making the same decisions I think are good, in itself invalidates my discussion of them.
Respect the Respec
I don't think I've gone into this detail on this. But I had one coffee (2nd in 7 days WOOO) on a trip to Sydney and when I came home this happened...
What?
Respec. That thing where you take an existing character build, and change it.
A term, and practice, I think still most commonly used in video games, though still in the RPG genre.
Definitely a thing we could do in TTRPGs. Definitely a thing some of us do. Probably a thing we should do more.
I’m going to tell my little story about my journey with Respec mechanisms.
Why I think Respec is already in more game systems than people realize.
How I think embracing that fact, then working from that pre-existing point to design your systems with a better ground up acknowledgment of Respec as a formal integrated game mechanic can produce a raft of potential benefits.
A more traditional view of Respec
Traditionally Respec is seen as something outside of the system, meta-game at best. And it is seen generally as a “correction”.
Usually a player has changed their mind, decided a previously taken option in their character build was a bad idea for whatever reason and wants to just… change it.
Typically then the whole process is handled informally out of system because the system rarely has true (acknowledged) integrated respec of any form let alone a convenient one. The GM and the players either “figure something out” (let it happen) or don’t (which is probably all in all the wrong decision).
Traditional Respec is pretty OK. If a player feels they would be happier changing something on their character sheet then, within reason, you should probably let them, most of the time this is only going to make the game better for everyone.
But I think traditional concepts of Respec and its uses overlooks how we are already using it as a game mechanic without acknowledging it, and how we could, and probably should be using it as a game mechanic.
My brief Respec Journey
In the beginning… it was the early 90s I was 12, played 2nd Edition advanced and my biggest contribution to home brewing my rules was procedural dungeon generation (not that I knew to call it that). So yeah, in the beginning I had no idea what Respec was even as a nameless concept. Well that was a wasted paragraph.
So anyway at some point I first started allowing Respec pretty much the moment I encountered it if not sooner. Not that I encountered it much. If anything I was offering it to Players more often than they wanted it, sometimes I wanted them to Respec… something… more than they did. Because god damnit change that one thing and fix your character already, right?
But I didn’t think about it much. I didn’t do it much. And I think importantly. Players not only didn’t ask for it much they pretty much never asked for a FULL respec of an existing character, or any major respec like a class change. They would if the rare event occurred prefer a straight up new character and I think there are reasons for that, and that this reluctance has implications, maybe even useful ones. Which I will get into later. (edit: forgot to, now it doesn't fit right, maybe in a reply)
At some point I moved from class based level systems to classless points based systems. I think this is important in relevance to Respec and it’s applications. Again, it’s worth it’s own point later. But in moving to classless mechanics Respec became immediately more valuable and I used and offered it more.
And since all the remaining points on my journey are also important headings in their own right lets finish the journey with more headings…
That thing about why Classes Probably Shouldn’t Respec
So. I think Respec and the applications of it I have here probably has relevance to most complex class based systems.
I just think it has MORE relevance to classless points based systems. Basically because the more changeable moving parts a character has, the more customizable they were in the first place the more they might benefit from being changed.
And I think classes themselves are an example of a bit of an outlier option that probably is big enough and SHOULD be well designed enough it shouldn’t respec most of the time.
A good class system, even a fairly mediocre one, should make it pretty hard for a player to “pick the wrong class for their character” and in game story relevant class change… probably isn’t THAT much of a thing.
At the very least, I think that classes probably fall mostly outside of my ideas here. Pretty much all the other small character build options surrounding classes in a class based system however are definitely basically the same as all the small character build options in a classless system and ARE relevant and applicable to this thread.
And Classless Systems probably need Respec even more
The advantages of a player “fixing” something they, or everyone (or maybe even anyone) sees as wrong with their character are fairly universal.
But when you have a classless system with significantly greater customization or just as potential choices in character building ramp up with any mechanical complexity to character builds… mistakes can be made, and probably more of them and more often.
So with more choice, comes more need to allow people to change their decisions. Respec can at some point change from a minor luxury, into a key necessity. And anything that is a necessity, probably needs to be covered at least in your written informal guidelines if not your formal rules directly.
Respec From Level 0
Personally something I have enjoyed doing and made a focus of my early game rules for a while now is in game organic character building, and doing it from “level 0” or whatever equivalent zero starting point you want to imagine.
Dropping players straight into a game, and letting them decide their character builds as it is relevant. Letting them decide “I want to be the Strong guy” when the moment that would be relevant pops up. Allowing them to get a moment in the spotlight and reinforce their choice with that as a positive reward.
Breaking up character creation and spreading it out over enjoyable game play that engages the whole group instead of having everyone sit there and work on their characters for X tens of minutes before anything fun happens.
There are a few problems with this method. One is the most basic problem organic characters face in general. Organic character builds are much more likely to result in a choice a player later wants to fix. All the more so if it happens during an organic in game character creation event. But it still applies if you are encouraging Organic character development later on as well.
So. Respec is called for to support organic character builds in general, and level 0 in game organic character creation especially so.
Also, if you acknowledge Respec as a formal thing that happens you can also try and mechanically grapple with one of the other problems of a level 0 organic character.
What are their relevant traits BEFORE they select any? Just about any system worth calling itself one is going to have a few divide by zero errors when faced with a character that hasn’t picked any selectable options yet trying to interact with game mechanics.
But with a formal acknowledgement that Respec definitely is a thing that happens you can use Respec to provide literal place holder options.
My own system definitely cares about target keyword match ups. These are definitely affected by your Good and Bad trait selections. But the ‘level 0” character… hasn’t decided yet. Well. Fine, they can have place holder traits called things like “Unknown Good Trait” that lets us have some formal interactions with them, because we have acknowledged that we can and WILL Respec that trait later.
And we can extend those place holders to whatever else is mechanically necessary. Like a physical defense ability that just give us our equivalent of a viable if somewhat poor AC called “Default Dodge” or something until the player decides what sort of proper starter option they rely on for their physical defenses.
There are limits where it can get weird. We perhaps don’t really want someone suddenly turning out to be a mermaid after they all trek on foot through a desert and climb a mountain, but even that could be overlooked with some straining and you CAN just set a limit and say “if you want these options… pick them earlier…”
In the mean time Respec means to whatever extent you decide is acceptable, you don’t need to pick straight away, and you CAN change your mind about an impulsive pick later. That being pretty much the vital foundations you need to make true organic character development viable.
Suddenly Shape Changing
So. A fairly complex fantasy RPG cares about physical abilities and body shape stuff.
A traditional RPG cares about Races, Monsters, Monstrous abilities, physical Attributes. Mine has equivalents to all those things, most fantasy RPGs do.
We all care when someone is a werewolf and the sorceress sometimes turns into a wolf monster.
We all care that someone has polymorph other or an equivalent and might turn someone ELSE into a wolf monster, or a perfectly round frog that makes squeaky noises.
While trying to wrap my head around not just representing physical form related abilities, but also how the hell to represent changing them, I eventually came to terms with what I think I would consider my first encounter with Respec mechanics “in the wild”.
Taking your sorceress character sheet and swapping it for wolf monster, or fully or partially, IS a character Respec. One that no one really asked for, but is there by virtue of what the game needs to do to mechanically represent desirable in game events and abilities.
The implications remained relatively minimal. Pretty much all acknowledging shape changing as a Respec meant was that I could draft up some underlying Respec rules and have Shape Changing effectively refer to them.
And the only real benefit of that was that I could have some commonality between a PC that decided they wanted to swap out that one sword skill they took and the PC that was somehow swapping in a wolf bite.
It also meant I could give out a rapid in combat Respec like turning into a wolf monster and limit them to a resulting Respeced character of the same over all value and have a fairly lazy to write but entirely functional and highly customizable alternative form ability to give out.
I feel though that it was still fairly trivial.
Respec as Retraining
As trivial as shape changing as respec was, it did result in me firmly making Respec a part of the formal mechanics. And I extended that to options beyond body shape/physical form related ones.
Initially this was in the form of Skills.
I wanted a relatively organic and complex system for obtaining new skills, and some kind of at least semi formal if not entirely formal “Training” mechanic.
With Respec already acknowledged by the system, it was fairly trivial to have the Training mechanism acknowledge Respec.
Adding a new Skill is sort of a Respec, so why not also use the same process to change an old one?
And then copy paste for Spells because as far as I was concerned, they are just basically magical flavor Skills.
I still think it was a fairly trivial benefit, but it was another benefit, and these things add up.
Items Are Respec
Just about everyone wants their system to represent items. And not only has my work been no exception I have been moving in ever more materialistic directions since my Barbie Mansions experiments and it has been fantastic.
Once you represent items game mechanically you have a set of options that do game mechanically relevant things.
And it’s a set of Options that can, at least certainly should, be easily changed.
In the simplest terms lets consider a sword, and an axe. Lets give them different bonuses vs different targets. We do not care which. All that matters is they are different and would be better in different contexts.
Some fights are a good fight to hold a sword in.
Some fights are a good fight to hold an axe in.
We definitely want mechanics that let you change whether your character is holding a sword or an axe, maybe, probably, even very quickly and in combat.
And that’s a Respec right there. And it definitely happened in combat time. And it had a formal in game time/action cost. And sure, shape changers were already doing that, but swapping a weapon is WAY more common.
Having an item system is something a huge proportion of systems are going to do. And it’s Respec. This is one of the reasons I’m saying not just that you should make Respec a formal thing in your game, I’m telling you it already is.
Anyway. Acknowledging this, treating inventory management as a form of Respec, was the next step in getting to where I currently am on Respec in TTRPG design.
But Wait. Respec vs Match Ups?
Maybe you give out Respec informally “In down time”.
Maybe you give it out for free instantly at any time (or hopefully almost any time since applying no limits at all is going to be a minor problem in a moment).
Maybe you give out Respec like I think you probably should, with some (in some cases quite small) formalized mechanical costs (like an Action to change active weapons).
But. Then you have a “problem”.
Someone is going to complain you just broke RPS balance.
They will say “If you can just Respec then everyone WILL Respec and always have advantageous Match Ups for all encounters!”.
Now. That’s wrong on first principles because of the whole RPS does nothing thing. But there IS more to it than just that.
We cannot “break” the number of advantageous match ups characters have because that’s entirely unpredictable and outside of rules design control anyway.
But we certainly CAN consider how Respec can interact with having advantageous encounters or not, and how to better craft your Respec tools to allow you represent these things and encourage enjoyable gaming outcomes with them.
First we can acknowledge 3 types of Encounter.
1) An encounter where players have full knowledge within whatever time/cost they require to Respec as much as necessary to gain the best advantage.
2) An encounter where players have no knowledge and no time/cost in which to Respec at all and may or may not randomly have an advantage.
3) An encounter where players can learn as they go and also Respec as they go in order to better adapt for some advantage.
Then we can look at what player interaction with those encounters looks like.
1) Players are planning and engaging with game events, researching information, and spending time gathering equipment and other relevant options. This is good. This is player engagement. This is EXACTLY what we should be aiming for.
2) Players are plunged into an unexpected encounter they may or may not be disadvantaged in. These things should happen sometimes. We can’t say how often, but it’s nice if the tools are there that this at least CAN be represented. Totally genuinely free and instant Respec at all times would somewhat undermine that. But applying any formalized limits or costs still makes it possible.
3) Players get to observe aspects of the Encounter, determine a better course of action, and adapt to it with choices. The fighter observers enemies resistant to his axe, so he spends a minor action cost to get out a sword. Effectively buffing his attacks for the remainder of the combat, at the minor cost of a minor equipment change. This is again, direct player engagement with game play events and then rewarding them for doing so. This is exactly what we should be aiming for. And formal in game Respec mechanics are what make it possible.
In fact “Golf bag fighter” with a bag of weapons for different encounters may be an exaggeration, but up to at least some point is actually a thing we definitely want to support.
Similarly viable golf bag WIZARDS with a bunch of spells for different encounters though… I mean we definitely want them in some form so what would be a good way…
BAM! Everythings an Item now!
OK. So this is a product in some form of the more extreme edge of what I’m doing with my rules lately.
And yeah. I’m treating basically everything as at least mechanically being similar with item management. Everything has monetary value (if not monetary cost) and it’s all about active options and inventories of available options. A lot of that goes beyond the scope of this Respec topic.
But keeping it simple. Here is the more basic version of the proposal.
Golf Bag Wizard, works almost exactly like Golf Bag Fighter.
Golf bag Fighter has a limited number of active weapons, and a bunch of other weapons in their item inventory that they CAN get out in combat to exchange for their active weapons, but at a formal cost. And yes. That’s a Respec.
Golf bag Wizard has a limited number of attack spells, and a bunch of other spells in their spell inventory that they CAN get out in combat to exchange for their active spells, but at a formal cost. Probably almost exactly the same formal cost as the Fighter pays to swap around active items. And again, yes that’s a Respec.
And even aside from training and retraining rules. Both of them probably have Skills. And maybe both of them know more Skills than they can have Active at once. So they have an inactive Skill inventory of sorts. And a list of Active Skills. And again, a similarly costed ability to switch out the Active skills with ones in skill inventory. Because why not? AND that’s a Respec.
Aaand the shapechanger has some sort of inventory of forms or physical form related options, and again a formally costed ability to swap them out. You could even do gradual and custom shape changing with this. And it’s Respec, and again, if not the exact same Respec then at least one that can be measured and costed in the same formalized scale.
Respec is items and inventory, everything is Items and inventory, everything is Respec. Simple enough?
Respec and Wide Character Builds
There are a few really rich benefits to treating everything like this and having at least minor in game respec from option inventories.
One of the biggest is fairly simple.
We might (and I personally definitely do) want to limit simultaneously Active game mechanical options on a character more than we want to limit how many options we make available.
You should be finding new weapons lying around all the damn time. And if swords are different to axes even if you just found a mace that is clearly inferior to your sword or axe… you probably SHOULD be able to carry it around on the off chance a “Maces Good” encounter pops up if you have some spare inventory space.
Wizards absolutely should be collecting all the spells they can. We just don’t want them being able to cast all of them at any time, without paying at least SOME formal cost.
Like a re-equip cost… like a Respec cost.
Formal in game partial Respec, priced at a point that is viable but noticeable in combat is way to put a mild but workable limit on active options. You don’t LOSE your ice bolt spell because you gained a fire ray spell, you just put it away for now and it costs you just a little something to get it back out, something which becomes part of an engaging game play interaction if you see a need to get it back out.
Wait, inventory management as a formal mechanic?
Yeah I said inventory management. And yes I am aware that can mean a lot of things in a lot of systems (and just for a lot of groups because groups often ignore inventory and encumbrance type rules and make up their own). Including no rules at all.
But I think using Inventory as the description of what your inactive options “Quick Respec” management looks like is a pretty reasonable way to put it, because I think most of the potential ways to manage Inventory, from “sure whatever” to “lets not go crazy” to “no really, there is a formal costed limit” are all potentially viable ways to decide to manage these lists of available, but not active, options.
If for no other reason than one flavor of these lists IS literally your item inventory.
But mostly because in the end we do not super care how many options you COULD have been ready to use. In a system correctly designed to account for this sort of Respec we only care about what you have ready to use RIGHT NOW, and how much it costs you to change to something else with the assumption that you change to something else because that would be beneficial.
Having an additional option on your inactive list might as well be free… because it might have actually been free. That mace you found ages ago, was just lying on the floor. That dodging skill you know was just something lying around from your early organic character build start before you decided it was much better to rely on a really large helmet instead. That suspiciously highly specific anti-demon spell was something the GM foisted on you during a bullshit cut scene event.
Should dagger guy be able to fit more separate dagger type attack profiles on his inactive options list than big sword guy can fit separate big sword attack profiles on his inactive options list? Does it even matter if he does?
It only takes ONE inactive option to potentially have an inactive option worth swapping out for. And what with RPS type encounter match ups being utterly unpredictable we have no idea whatsoever how many inactive options you need to have to basically “always” have a good one in reserve. And depending on uncontrollable encounter types, luck and good decision making, the Big Sword guy with one spare sword could easily end up taking it out more often than the dagger guy with 4 backup daggers takes any of those out.
We only care that when it happens, the quick swap cost itself was acceptable.
Respec and Disarming
It should be pretty clear at this point. I already regard any system that cares about your sword as having performed a forcible partial Respec on your character when someone disarms your sword off your character.
One of the minor but kinda nice advantages of formalized Respec where everything works a bit like items is you can have a better unified underlying treatment of disarming and disabling other options as well.
I think at the moment my preferred example is Disarming Spells. Once everything is (sort of) an item you only need a very simple option for your anti-magic spell-taker guy to be able to literally take spells off people (and maybe use them) in basically the same way that a sword-taker-guy would with a sword.
I mean, this is further facilitated by other aspects of my current system, like items and spells basically using the same sorts of resourcing mechanics, no base attribute dependence, virtually no proficiency system, and a few other things.
But at it’s core, to take a spell like it’s an item, its the Respec and option inventory mechanics that are the main thing that let this happen and let it happen in a simple unified standardized way.
Respec and the Specialization Problem
The specialization problem is present to some degree in any game where you introduce a choice in character builds, and is likely more of an issue the more choice you introduce. It isn’t a problem inherent to Respec, but it IS a problem more likely to exist in systems that would benefit more from having better Respec.
And someone is going to make the mistake of thinking Respec has anything much directly to do with it.
I’m going to use my own system as an example, just because it happens to have some divisions of ability types that (could have) left it very open to the Specialization problem and are pretty intuitive for the explanation.
When you select active options in my System they could be to do with different types of encounter. (Like Physical or Social) and they can be options that grant benefits related to Attack, or Defence.
A simple example of the Specialization problem would be loading too many (however many that might be) of your options into one encounter type, or more classically, all into one attack type at the cost of not investing in any other encounter type or defense options.
Certainly in a system where a “level 1” character probably has 7 active options… even with other mechanisms to limit the specialization problem a character who spreads their 7 options fairly evenly across the 6 available option types is going to have a hard time, very possibly a game breakingly hard time, being attacked by a character who invested all 7 options in physical attack.
And if the system allowed that then Respec could make it worse by ALSO allowing the same character to (who cares at this point what the cost would be) Respec into a character that instead invested all 7 options into Social attack. Letting them switch and use the specialization problem to dominate MORE encounter types if not, at that point almost all encounter types (I don’t have many broad types of encounter).
But the clue is in the 6 types of option the system offers. Because Respec could exacerbate this problem, but it can neither solve nor cause it.
Your system has to try and solve the problem with limitations somewhere else. Like mine, which MAKES you spread your option selections out fairly evenly among the types. With the “level 1” equivalent character having to buy one of each and only being left with 1 “wild card” to spend as a second of option of one of the types. Not a revolutionary solution to the specialization problem. But alarmingly more than most points based systems I have seen has even bothered trying.
Meanwhile a Respec system with the Active Option/Inactive Inventory setup can interact with limits like that to let you better support the player who DOES just keep picking up new weapons. It doesn’t matter if they picked up a total of 12 physical attack options in item form. It doesn’t even matter if they all somehow directly stack (they probably shouldn’t but whatever, this time they do) They only get to have 1-2 of them active because of the separate mechanic intended to limit the specialization problem, but they DO get to in some form have those additional options they wanted because of the inactive option inventory, AND even occasionally get to use them because they can Respec their active option selections in a viable manner.
And then it can also work like that with spells, skills, and crocodile teeth.
Unification of Option Types
By diving down this rabbit hole of formalized Respecing actions, semi-formal inactive option inventories, and the effective abstract itemization of skills, spells and monstrous abilities. I have ended up with what I think is one of the best benefits of this whole thing beyond the broad character build benefits.
A single unified system for important game mechanical character options, that doesn’t care (much) about the cosmetic typing of the option (item/spell/skill/body) but DOES care about managing how much relevant power you have access to by the type of activity you are engaging in and lets you usefully adjust your character regardless of the cosmetic typings of the options you are switching out in ways that have at least an underlying common mechanical base, and are sometimes just outright identical.
A character can swap out a sword to bring in a fire bolt spell or a crocodile bite or a martial arts technique and pay the same cost using the same mechanic and not worry about exceeding the formalized sane limit of how many physical attack options they should be allowed to use at once.
This is probably the biggest thing I am proud of about this whole endeavor.
I know it’s pretty simple. But, that’s the bit that makes it so good.
And also because it’s pretty simple, it’s potentially applicable in part, or in full, to a range of systems other than just my own.
And because it happens every time
Now que DeadDM or a counterpart once again declaring this is a trivial observation everyone always secretly knew all along (then proving via verbal diarrhea that they STILL don’t grasp any of it). Well. Didn’t see you posting about it in the last decade or two.
edit: And also que someone complaining that it's wrong of me to mention that I use the game mechanics that I advocate for as good decisions. And that somehow, making the same decisions I think are good, in itself invalidates my discussion of them.