Respec is a base game mechanic

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

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.

[OgreBattle]

Wizard Cleric Druid being the "respec is their class feature" classes is certainly a big part of their dominance, especially if a game is paired with "no you have to dedicate your warrior to one specific weapon forever".

Disarming a spell, taking it... would "I use a mirror to bounce the ray back at him!" count as that?

[Foxwarrior]

I notice that you have a tendency to prefer game mechanics that are totally honest about their game design underpinnings. Maybe I'll figure out how to write a short essay about why you're wrong to feel that way later (something to do with how making fighters and shapeshifters mechanically different helps reinforce the feeling of them being things that exist in a world)
But yeah you're right, if you want respeccing to be a thing in your ttrpg then you should make it possible to do within the fiction instead of outside of it. And you probably should want it to be a thing because fantasy stories have characters changing in all sorts of ways... The one caveat I have to this is that there's a certain appeal to the idea that you can get a hint of a character's history by how they are now, my favorite part of organic characters is how you can see where they've been by the growth marks on them.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Disarming a spell, taking it... would "I use a mirror to bounce the ray back at him!" count as that?

That could be a question about function and maybe the justifying fluff.

In functional terms, it really can just be like taking an item, preventing the user using it, then maybe keeping it and using it yourself.

In fluff terms, you might want to represent it as a special magical skill (or spell itself) that a spell-taker-guy could learn that lets them interact with the intangible magical talents/possessions of a target. If you were a Wizard/Cleric/Druid in the traditional sense prepared spells are very much a type of magical and only marginally abstract thing that you possess, they can be lost or taken.

Not sure I'd just informally wing it and say anyone just can do this, just say you grab a mirror or something to explain yourself. But that's just a question of when you want that flavor of Respec manipulation mechanic to kick in. I personally put it on the key thematic special ability that really is all it takes to make someone a spell taker guy. Then I make that an ability option, and make that option a spell. I could have went with item. No reason that option couldn't be a magic mirror.

[merxa]

Are you still using classes? your talk about golf bag wizards and fighters then also mention shapeshifters, and suggests they all have their own inventory which caters to their shtick.

Do these items all cost the same resource, or is more than one resource type used to purchase items? Do items manifest when you purchase them, or do they need to have existed prior? You mentioned swapping items in and out of being active is a resource cost, is this the same resource you use to buy items or is it separate?

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I notice that you have a tendency to prefer game mechanics that are totally honest about their game design underpinnings. Maybe I'll figure out how to write a short essay about why you're wrong to feel that way later (something to do with how making fighters and shapeshifters mechanically different helps reinforce the feeling of them being things that exist in a world)

Not sure I see an association between transparency and fighters and shape shifters having some need to be mechanically different.

I feel like if you need them to be mechanically different to reinforce flavor... people would need to see that mechanical difference? Like with mechanical transparency?

Anyway, as for mechanical difference bettween a fighter an a shape shifter.

I did mention the system does care a little. There are differences between skill/spell/item/body typed options. Mostly in how they interact with getting on and off a characters inactive option inventories and what it means to be there.

Skills and spells are somewhat abstract learned things, and more difficult for others to mess with, they tend to just accumulate in their inactive inventories with relatively little limit.

Items are easily manipulated, gained and lost. Item typed inactive inventories might face some limits, stop trying to wear three helmets at once. Things in your item type inactive option inventory are physically there, on your person, some of them will even need to be worn and not just held or kept in a pocket.

Body options require some form of shape changing, or they are pretty permanent. It's not so easy casually put a crocodile bite on your body option inactive inventory and also not so easy to take it back off. Body option innactive inventory is also physically there. Unless you are a true shape changer and your whole trick is that you DO have some way to REALLY put away that crocodile bite where no one can see it.

The unification of the mechanics comes at the ACTIVE Option end, at the actual limitations on functional character power. Your fighter and your shape changer at the same level BOTH can have, lets say, 2 Physical Attack Options and 1 Physical Defense Option active at once. And THOSE limits don't care about body/skill/item etc... The cost of switching things currently on your inactive options inventories into Active Options instead, that cost is a unified mechanic.

And the big benefit of this in the context of comparing the fighter and the shape changer isn't just that these two rather different characters have the same limitations at the same level for over all physical attack and physical defense power.

The big benefit is when the fighter is also the shape changer. Permanently from the get go or suddenly due to events. Things go smoothly, and intuitively and don't become the sort of additive mess that can happen with unique mechanics for shape changing and monstrous templates when they DON'T operate within the same mechanical limitations on character power.

You CAN suddenly have a wolf bite and a sword, you just might have to choose between which one is currently active, or trade out that attack skill.

A lot of this is also a byproduct of building this from the ground up to better support monstrous or physical body related abilities from the get go. Everyone knows my stance on RPG "Race" mechanics. Having a devil tail that just does something is something some characters just have and it falls into the same costing and power schemes as all the other functional mechanical abilities because that's what you need to do to support those sorts of character builds without gradually breaking everything like traditional race and monstrous form mechanics do.

But while all this post is pretty specific to my system. Not all of it has to be. As mentioned D&D style spell preparation... is basically this whole inactive inventory Respec mechanic. You can adapt this stuff to fit in in part or full in lots of ways.

The one caveat I have to this is that there's a certain appeal to the idea that you can get a hint of a character's history by how they are now, my favorite part of organic characters is how you can see where they've been by the growth marks on them.

But we need characters to fill their active options limitations with abilities the player enjoys and a that are effective. In a game that had more traditional Respec scenario, that means throwing away your cool backstory options.

One of things a wide build of inactive option inventories can give you is that even when you NEED to fix your damn active options, you can keep your cool backstory cake... and put it in your inactive inventory for later.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Are you still using classes? your talk about golf bag wizards and fighters then also mention shapeshifters, and suggests they all have their own inventory which caters to their shtick.

Wizards are just guys who mostly have spells. Fighters are just guys mostly with swords and swording skills. Shape shifters are guys who have crocodile bites, but somehow sometimes do not. Someone could build a character with bits of all these things, and pick a label for it, that's the whole point of a classless system, it doesn't shut off access to "wizards", it just means guys with that label might also "do swords" as some sort of hybrid role if they like. You can have and refer to an informal role or theme without needing a class. It's fine.

But the different inventories type thing. Well like I was just now saying. Its mostly a way of differentiating several types of options without impacting the final limits on character power through active options. And it there aren't very many option types that differentiate inventories it's pretty much just as I listed already, item, skill, spell, body. I think the post I just made probably covers that enough by accident already.

Do these items all cost the same resource, or is more than one resource type used to purchase items?

For the purposes of this topic... mostly that doesn't even matter. But as a simple response, ignoring wealth and power tiering. Everything is pretty much like an item and costs money.

And money doesn't really matter. It is pretty arbitrary. You can go to a shop and buy real character power by buying sword, but you might find one lying around for free and get the same money "value" of character power.

More broadly you can buy the other things too. Spells are sold, skill books are sold, potions that give you a crocodile bite can be sold. Things like that, it isn't hard to lets face it, kinda monetize everything. And if you can sell it, it can be lying around as loot. And even when you can't buy the crocodile bite because you were born with it, it can have a value equivalent to money, an opportunity cost, a sunk investment in childhood nutrition, maybe someone can even still sell it in the right unfortunate context.

We can put further limits and slightly different costs like requiring some time expense to train skills, learn spells, have your crocodile bite grow in, etc... it doesn't super matter and you can formalize that if you like, not do it, or in my case mostly wing it and only semi formalize just a few things as having a minor time cost aspect.

But the REAL resource that limits character power with hard formal rules, are the limits on Active Options. Everything before that is rife with the influence of unpredictable organic game play. When you consider your character build this it the thing you will be looking at and allocating. This is pretty much the "Points" part of what is functionally a points based system. And you use it to shop from your inactive option inventories.

The system certainly has a bunch of my ideas about how it wants to facilitate the collection of inactive options with combinations of shopping and looting and what not. But really, the point of the wide inactive options inventories and the narrow active options limits is that it really doesn't super matter much you clutter up your inactive inventories or how things get in there and whether or not you paid a fee and waited a week.

And it's good to keep that stuff fairly flexible for game play. I want to let the players loot the bodies without the game breaking. I want to toss in a treasure or a rare new skill teacher or whatever.

Do items manifest when you purchase them, or do they need to have existed prior?

No, they don't manifest from nothing, why would they. You treat items like items. They are objects in the world you interact with physically. Pick them up, put them down, wear them as a suit, hit things with them.

If this is more a question of "I know where swords come from, do skills, spells and crocodile teeth just come from nowhere?" I think I've probably just indirectly covered that.

You mentioned swapping items in and out of being active is a resource cost, is this the same resource you use to buy items or is it separate?

The resource for swapping active options (including items) in an out from the inactive inventory by my current default in my system, and as the default I would advise for any system trying this sort of structure is an ACTION or TIME type cost. One intended to be at a price point viable to pay during a combat encounter but not so cheap as to be genuinely free.

I like to keep numbers small and encounters fast. I do not expect long encounters. Spending one action to swap out one active option for an inactive one is on my systems time scale a fairly heavy, but not inconceivable cost for that benefit. That's what I charge. Different systems are going to value actions turns and what not differently.

If you were so averse to Respec that you don't want to even let characters pay notable action costs in combat to swap a sword or spell they also already have available to swap you COULD completely limit them to time costs outside of ones viable for combat. If you want you could even charge them money. Whatever, if you aren't building an exact copy of my system there is a lot of room for flexibility in exactly what you pay for it and when you pay it and even how much of it you get for that price at once.

[merxa]

thanks for answering, i have a bit of a different impression now than when i read the first post. Does the system have levels?

If say you go through session 0 and session 1, and player A has their golfbag wizard, and player B has their golfbag fighter, and C is the shifter, What does B do if they decide to start pulling some stuff from the wizard's golfbag? Since they are adventuring together, can A just teach B their spells, is there any resource cost (time?), would you expect groups that tend to optimize to have any reason not to pool together every character option they can?

For terminology, you have 'skill/spell/item/body' -- and you want to apply your universal mechanic to them as a means of balance, maybe call them collectively options or character slots, but don't call them 'items' if a subcategory is also called item (then you get silly sentences like 'your item item'). As you mentioned, these categories aren't strictly the same, presumably items have weight and carrying a literal golf bag of them could be prohibitive while skills presumably don't weight anything. One thing that sticks out to me is, why carry a item when you could turn your arm into one? Items weigh something even when not in use (unless passive items exist in a sort hammerspace) while the arm that can transform into the equivalent of a sword or axe only weighs as an arm or whatever it is. An item can be stolen, needs to be made or bought, it is easier to transfer but seems to overall have more drawbacks. What about spells, do they need items to be used? And can spells make items or transform the body or grant skills?

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Does the system have levels?

I'm going to say sort of. It's really basically a points based system. The points are how many of those limited Active Options you can have and effectively each point is an Option.

The system requires you to spread your options across 6 categories for the anti-specialization mechanic. And your 7th option gets to be a wild attributed to any of the 6 categories.

Then you do it again. I decided to call each cycle of 7 of those a "Level". And you can advance Option by option from level 1 to level 1.2,1.3 etc and level 1.7 is just level 2. Its a messy place holder for some character advancement I just dropped in and then found to be pretty workable.

It's not the ONLY character advancement in the system, there is the somewhat soft advancement of wealth an innactive option libraries, the more formal advancement of raising the Tier of your Options, but the levels that change your total active options limits really do end up mattering for character advancment.

However. They also increase character complexity Especially since the individual Options are, well, slightly complex? I think you start capping out on viable complexity somewhere around about Level 3.0.

But that's fine. You can sort of look at this portion of character advancement as a way to just feed increased complexity to the players slowly so they can get used to having characters that are trying to do/manage/juggle more individual things at once. And then handle your raw power advancement by timing and rationing the gradual availability of the next Tier of Options (Tiers being very much a wealth/power tier and there are only three and half of those too).

Wealth tiers and advancement are kinda outside of the function of the Respec thing.

If say you go through session 0 and session 1, and player A has their golfbag wizard, and player B has their golfbag fighter, and C is the shifter, What does B do if they decide to start pulling some stuff from the wizard's golfbag? Since they are adventuring together, can A just teach B their spells, is there any resource cost (time?), would you expect groups that tend to optimize to have any reason not to pool together every character option they can?

I find players mostly don't share all that much anyway.

However. You certainly could set this up so yeah, why not literally hand the fighter a spell from time to time and why not get that from the wizards inactive options. Certainly, the Fighter CAN hand the wizard a sword.

And I would do that, if I were going for an even faster even simpler even more casual version of my system. But I have put in some small road blocks. Not so much to stop this sort of thing happening, but really just to put in some flavor, create excuses for training montages, and as side effects from some other flavor stuff like the whole skill/body/item differentiation stuff. And just more broadly because this is intended to be a TTRPG for relatively long term campaigns and it includes a semi-formal down-time long term time management system and stuff needed to be pointed in that direction sometimes.

Items are casually exchangeable and relatively few if any proficiency limitations exist in the system at all. ANY character can pick up a sword and just use it without penalty, an hell, they can pick up something exotic like a scissors katar and use it without penalty. Its heroic, its part of a design intent to give the "default character" a pretty functional across the board competency.

But no penalty isn't the same as all the possible synergy. And as a sword guy gets more advanced one of the basic options he will supplement his abilities with are Skills that let them add something extra to their sword attacks. Wizard guy can just pick up a Sword and get the full profile of the sword option, but it doesn't ALSO include the full profile of the Skill Option.

And skills don't transfer as easily. Switching from your own inactive inventory to your active options for a skill is the same cost as doing it with an item. But moving a skill from your active or inactive lists to ANOTHER characters innactive skill inventory just takes you back to the same rules for accuiring a skill option in the first place. Remember I made a fairly vague mention of some time costs. Well it takes two things to learn a skill. Some time (I hand wave it a bit by letting you do montages in your spare time especially for low tier skills, but ultimately its a long term time cost). And the other requirement is a knowledge source for the skill. Which can a skill book, a teacher, your party member who is acting as a teacher, or even one of your "Trivial" options like "I can learn a skill that I have seen used even once".

So yes, everyone can exchange, or rather copy and share all their skills. But it takes a little while, it's not happening THIS combat. If you give your PCs enough extra long term down time why shouldn't they share all their training? If they really want it I will let them, I don't really expect many to do so.

Spellls get to be a bit different because I arbitrarily locked them behind another 'Trivial" option. It just says "You can use spells". I have different flavor variants in case someone ever wants to say "Ah I have assessed you inate magical soul and you are talented in ice magic, but ONLY ice magic"

Probably worth mentioning Trivial options properly at this point. Right you know all those options that do something kinda bullshit that you might care about but also might not matter (and in the end mostly don't really matter) and is largely down to pure GM arbitration or fiat. Yeah. Well they are "Trivial Options" they don't count for your Active Option limit, because they don't directly do or fall into any of the mechanical categories like "Attack Option" and fuck it, whatever, have however many of them, they might take money and time to earn but none of the harder mechanisms limit them. The ability to "Learn a Skill if I see it" for instance is sort of worthless. You COULD have just asked bob, you could have paid a guy, you could have found a skill book. You still need to spend a bit of time on it, and if its anything other than a Trivial skill... you still have to pay with your Active Options limit to use it. Similarly "I'm allowed to use the magic flavor of options" is considered a pretty cheap trivial skill.

But all the same. You can't use spells without the magic powers trivial option. Go get that and then start exchanging spells like they were skills, go get some options that do spell-taker-guy stuff and you can even start exchanging spells like items. Amongst guys that took the magic powers trivial option. Which is basically a skill/body trait anyone CAN go and get, and it's cheap, but you need to actually go do that at some point.

Body Options basically need a means of shaping your body. One of those is just "be a guy" because some guys are lizard guys from the beginning. But more commonly you are talking potions and herbal diets, and then possibly some down time similar to training to grow in your new crocodile teeth.

You can hand someone else those potions or herbal diets before you use them, but you can't hand them your crocodile teeth because they are attached in your mouth as part of your body. And if you DO hand them to them, at best you are off trying to sell them, used, for cash intending to buy that potion or herbal diet or whatever.

Now a guy with the power to shape change others, THAT guy can "hand" you a set of crocodile teeth. And that ability probably also has some direct attack potential and costs him both actions and Active Options, might even cost him money to use and will cost you active options once you get the teeth and we can put whatever duration mechanics we like on that. (Can you tell my transformation magic guys haven't got their latest rewrite yet?)

Anyway, short version. You can share options among the party but you have limitations that mean swapping options between characters will a lot of the time not be as quick and easy as swapping active options on the same character.

But you COULD easily go with removing those limits for a faster more casual game play, seems pretty ideal for a more mindless dungeon ramble to me.

... maybe call them collectively options or character slots, but don't call them 'items' if a subcategory is also called item (then you get silly sentences like 'your item item')...

Its "Options" the terminology in use in game is Options, the active options limit is about available Option Slots. Item is just a subtype tag attached the Option to tell you how it interacts with inventories and the like. When I said everything is an item now as a heading, that was a metaphor.

Items weigh something even when not in use (unless passive items exist in a sort hammerspace) while the arm that can transform into the equivalent of a sword or axe only weighs as an arm or whatever it is.

I just don't bother with encumbrance rules, like most people playing in actual systems that even actually have encumbrance rules. I certainly think they could work with this sort of Respec setup, I just use a "That seems reasonable" limit for the Item type Inventory and tell people to stop trying to wear four pairs of boots at once. It's fine. And if I want to I can put equally arbitrary limits on all inactive option inventory types "that seems like too many spells to fit in your magical mind palace for spare spells" is something I COULD say once the magical mind palace is over a page long. I mean I probably won't and it won't be a problem if it does happen and I don't stop it, it will be fine.

I long since learnt over decades of D&D that you might as well just sit back and let inventories... happen. Just maybe step in occasionally and arbitrarily refuse to let them keep a three seat lounge in their coin purse.

An item can be stolen, needs to be made or bought, it is easier to transfer but seems to overall have more drawbacks. What about spells, do they need items to be used? And can spells make items or transform the body or grant skills?

Items are easy to quickly acquire and replace. Skills are hard to lose. Spells are vulnerable to spell takers and anything with advantages against magic. Body options can't be disarmed but can be severed.

All option types are also potentially expendable resources, (the game includes a number of Expend Option to get X abilities) If anything items in particular are something that pops up as an expendable option like that (or are expendable to fuel another option) and are somewhat intended to burn through for advantage and even loot replacements for while in combat.

And all of that is mostly flavor. It certainly isn't balance. Day of the disarm guys is not a predictable balance point any more than Day of the Spell taker guys.

It is a bit hard to build a character with only skills, it isn't hard to build a character mostly out of spells that still has items, there are even items that can act as a source of some spells. But you can certainly build a character with no items without breaking a sweat. And it WOULD have it's advantages. Mostly just against disarm specialists. But a lot of it is differentiation for flavor sake and when you make a cool item available and it's right there ready to loot and it costs nothing much at all to at least put in your inactive item inventory... players will take it.

And who am I to rule out the pure spells only character or a martial artist built out of skills and body? Congratulations, no one can take you sword. That's a freebie bonus that the monk can just have. I don't mind. Its barely breaking above Trivial Option value for me.

I also feel the need to add this. I felt the game needed reasons and methods for characters to stick items in their item inventory they probably never intended to use as a game mechanical option. Trivial Option items exist. Underwear and Clothing that doesn't provide a defensive bonus (and hopefully has no motivation to be disarmed or destroyed) is a thing.

Making players care about all the items can have limits. If you make all the clothing always be a potential defensive option. And there is a guy whos specialty is getting rid of items that provide defensive options. Sometimes you need to make underwear worthless or risk a mechanical incentive for forced nudity.

But a side effect of that is, you can also have a character build that does not rely on items for any non-trivial mechanical benefit. But still has some.

Because pants.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Well that last post went places at the end.

I don't regret ending in "Because Pants". How could I? It's brilliant.

I do regret suddenly going off on several paragraphs of wild tangent discussing the limits of implementing all items as game mechanically interesting objects to get there.

But that reminds me of a segway.

The Limitations of Respec Mechanics
You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it Respec into a larger camel

Here's that heading I promised but forgot to include in the opening post.

It really breaks into two parts.

Players want Respec except when they don't
Remember how I said players don't seem to want to do full respecs (and now I will add, new large previously unspecified ones). Pretty much at all, much less all of the time?

I think it's pretty real, and pretty universal. Players are totally up for Respec in combat time, Respec frequently, Respec like it was swapping out your spare sword from inactive item inventory into you hand.

But I don't think I have seen anyone just sit down and say "Lets do a big respec on our characters for X event". Which is a bit sad because as I have mentioned, even if I don't really want them doing that ALL the time, I think one of the big upsides is they CAN plan for a big event and do that.

The best I tend to get is "Lets swap like, one or two weapons or spells for this known upcoming event". Which is nice, but the bigger the upcoming event and the more it is, well, upcoming and known, I'd like the occasional dedicated shopping trip and training montages for that one big thing that isn't like the other things they most commonly do.

Shape changing as a big Respec made it into the original post for a few reasons, partly as being within my journey with Respec mechanics. But also because it seems to be the exception to this reluctance.

People DO seem to be if anything very enthusiastic at the very least for the "full werewolf" type treatment. I guess the value of the concept to them beats out the overheads that generates the usual reluctance.

But I would note while I have some design drive to support more "on the fly" shape changer based character themes that don't JUST swap to alt character build and back. That's just me, I've not observed a significant player drive towards it, the closest would be "full werewolf" enthusiasts considering the possibility of gaining the ability to bring in bits of it piecemeal as a sort of more advanced ability. And honestly I think more because they find it thematically interesting as a representing advancing in control of the change than for any attraction to mechanical benefits or an interest in being "Wolfy Swordsman" just some of the time. In fact, they are probably more interested in just letting their werewolf form advance to just "always" using swords on its swapped out character build as part of its general character advancement.

But. On the optimistic side. I think I'm pretty safe on people abusing Respecs that are too large, too frequent and too poorly prepared for.

Players are possibly objectively right when they don't want respect
I think a large part of player reluctance to do larger Respecs is subjective. There are issues of attachment to the character build as the character, an acceptance of smaller and more gradual changes because of flavor.

But I don't think it's all that. I think there is some real awareness of real objective overheads. There are real costs to respec. Especially the larger ones, especially if you keep pulling out new ones, especially if you don't have that alt form werewolf character sheet already handy.

You simply cannot represent the "full werewolf" or anything close without significant complexity.

Sure, final complexity cost for RUNNING the werewolf is almost nothing. Character build substitution leaves (presumably) the same complexity of character on the table performing the same complexity of actions. Maybe you also need some transformation rules about time costs and other effects of the changing itself, but that's potentially negligible.

But you still need to learn that other character sheet. You still need to record it. Those are real complexity costs. Many of them loaded on the player themselves.

I know there are players out there where "You can have the five new unique NPC side kicks but you have to do all the book keeping yourself" is not a deterrent. But I think it works for a lot of players. And I think if you consider the costs objectively it should probably be a deterrent for a lot of GMs too.

The subjective element kicks in when I am pretty sure I have seen more people interested in an NPC side kick than I have seen interested in a close enough to full alternative character build for their own character. And the NPC guys are probably the ones in the objective wrong on that one.

I don't want to come out saying NPC side kicks and Full Werewolfs are objectively wrong. But they ARE objectively costly. And you cannot find that one nifty trick to get around it.

Unifying this in your Respec rules still has big benefits, but even they can't ever make it so you don't have to create the actual werewolf alt form character sheet.

Which means you need to be aware. Respec has costs. And maybe don't give the alt form full werewolf to that one guy who is still figuring out the correct end of a sword even IF they ask for it.

And then this carries over in a smaller form to the smaller, more in demand, more beneficial piecemeal Respec the rest of the opening post is very enthusiastic about.

Its great stuff. Your Inactive Option inventory does great stuff for your character and the game.

But there is an increased book keeping cost, however incremental, however efficient for outcomes.

You should probably consider it at some level.

The complexity budget of your design, your game play, and what individual players can handle is always a fuzzy field. Respec doesn't make this much worse, it can even save you from the consequences of someone falling into a pitfall because they couldn't keep up and picked the wrong skill.

But it doesn't win the war on complexity budgets, it's just another participant.

[OgreBattle]

Money can sorta be the measure of how much your respec loot castle can hold and what's guarding it. Spent on the sorcery tower of research, secure vault of slaying weapons, skilled smiths to produce slaying weapons to slay the next thing you're after, training grounds for troopers to protect the story characters and clumps of land you possibly care about.

[deaddmwalking]

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.

Pot. Kettle.

Anyways, in our system, we have a formalized respec mechanic regarding character choices like class levels, talents, skills, etc. When you gain a level, you can also completely change one of your previous selections for each of those things. Since you usually get one at each level, changing a prior one and adding a new one actually makes a big difference in your character without FEELING like a big change since everyone is gaining new powers at the same time.

We'd find it too disconcerting for a character to swap out a sword for a bite-attack in the middle of an adventure even if they're mechanically identical because it would interfere with our suspension of disbelief. Likewise, learning new spells because they are advantageous in combat interferes with the fiction we want in the setting where learning magic requires research and poring over tomes.

As far as having multiple option in combat (such as switching weapons, possibly with an action cost), I think that is a trivial observation everyone always knew. In 3.x, wizards and/or sorcerers had a variety of spells on hand; forcing them to have one active and others in reserve has additional consequences, but I don't think any of them are better than just letting people have multiple active options that typically do not require any additional action cost. But in combat, at least, we don't have much trouble keeping people engaged. We've worked hard to ensure that every character has multiple tactical choices to consider, and all characters have a couple of resource considerations (action points, mana, VP, WP, as well as attack/defense bonus/penalties).

And while it should go without saying, I don't have a problem with people not having the proper solutions at hand to deal with a particular problem. Identifying an implementing the optimal solution at every stage could be a fun game, but we like trying to find a solution that could work under our specific circumstances and limitations. And then we watch it all go to shit and try to fix it.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

We'd find it too disconcerting for a character to swap out a sword for a bite-attack in the middle of an adventure even if they're mechanically identical because it would interfere with our suspension of disbelief. Likewise, learning new spells because they are advantageous in combat interferes with the fiction we want in the setting where learning magic requires research and poring over tomes.

So you would break your brain because... some guy who already had a permanent bite found a sword, picked up the sword, stopped using the bite as an active option for now and started using the sword?

Or. You would break your brain because a wizard used polymorph other and the sword guy got turned into bite guy for a while?

OK.

Nice brain you got there.

[deaddmwalking]

So you would break your brain because... some guy who already had a permanent bite found a sword, picked up the sword, stopped using the bite as an active option for now and started using the sword?

It wouldn't break my brain, but I don't see why guy with bite attack wouldn't use the sword and keep using the bite. Having a sword in your hand shouldn't meaningfully interfere with what you have in your teeth at any given moment.

Or. You would break your brain because a wizard used polymorph other and the sword guy got turned into bite guy for a while?

[/quote]

Our game doesn't have polymorph other. That spell specifically is a big pile of fail in 3.x so if your argument is 'my system is no more complicated or broken than polymorph other', I think you've clearly own-goaled yourself better than anyone could hope to do so. But we do have at least two spells that do give a creature a bite attack that didn't have one before. In those cases, that is an extra attack beyond what they can do with their normal weapon attacks. This would be a case where we think having a different physiology is in a 'different bag' than 'having a golf-bag of weapons'.

I can think of lots of situations where someone with a bite attack wouldn't prioritize it. But I think 'switching it out' in normal situations fails to align with the fiction. If you have a gator-man PC I don't want to hear "I can't bite him because I'm currently in two-handed club mode and switching modes will cost my normal attack'. I wouldn't have a problem with 'I can't bite him because I already used my attack actions' - we accept that there is a limit to how much you can do in a given round, whatever the system - but if we don't have narrative support for having a feat or talent on 'sleep mode', that's not something we'd want to put into our game.

Resource management games are good. Being able to make major changes to a character's abilities are good.

I'm glad you found a solution that works for you and that you're proud of. I would have happily let it go without comment except you called me out by name, so I figured I'd oblige you by sharing my opinion.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Look most of that's just you trying to gotcha because I tried to use familiar terminology for you for "a shape changing spell". But, turning that around. I'm going to contend a lot of problems with 3.x polymorphing, shape changing in general, and just monstrous physical abilities in general are rooted in a failure to keep them as part of a unified system within the same combined power and level limitations as everything else.

So I'm going to take this...

If you have a gator-man PC I don't want to hear "I can't bite him because I'm currently in two-handed club mode and switching modes will cost my normal attack'.

... and talk about the pitfalls of going down that path, and why my option is better and I'll even give it a headline.

When divergent advancement paths converge, things break
I really don't mind saying exactly the thing DeadDM doesn't want to here. It's a pretty OK sentence to hear when playing any even marginally abstracted game. But if you want to go on feels alone? If you want to make that sentence impossible as your design goal because you just hate those feels too much?

Let's start by looking at when that sentence can happen within my proposed Respec mechanic, and why it happens in my proposed Respec mechanic. Because it isn't actually something that will be appearing across the board.

There is an important proviso before that sentence actually happens. The crocodile clubber needs to have a limitation on how many active attacks he has available that is too small to fit both the bite and the club, he basically needs to be limited to just 1, or have others he also refuses to swap out and effectively only has one "free" for the two options.

In other words. The crocodile clubber in that sentence, is one too low level to fit both attacks on his actual functional active character sheet at the same time.

So to create a system that adheres to any sort of level limitations and permits the crocodile clubber but also prevents the brain breaking concept of... spending an action to switch to biting mode... you pretty much have two choices.

1) Croc Clubber cannot exist before a certain character level. This is basically just 3.x Level Adjustment and even if done well, has issues. It's also pretty bad if you can have Croc guy from level 1, but you won't let him pick up a club until level X because you need to keep character power by level in check.

The respec alternative to that lets you have Croc Guy from as early a level as biting things seems viable, AND lets them hit things with a stick from as early a level as that seems viable, by balancing the value at a simple and viable opportunity cost in combat for switching.

2) Being a Croc Guy is an alternative advancement path to having items/everything else and if combined with items/everything else is purely additive character power.

And 2 is kinda a big problem. It's small potatoes on a single crocodile bite, probably, but that's just a matter of scale. Because what about actual scales, crocodile ones, and a raft of potential croc guy character abilities, or the next monstrous ability, or the next monstrous character theme.

Being a croc guy is potentially made of a bunch of stuff. If you declare "but well croc guys inherently must always have all croc guy abilities mechanically available right now in every action they take, no quick Respec costs" then it's all additive power on top of their level/skills/items, by whatever margin the abilities that define a croc guy happen to be.

Then "Croc Guy Swordsman" is just a flat out additive boost compared to "Just A Guy Swordsman". And if it's not croc guy it will be a bunch of other potential "check out my sweet claws" type character themes.

And we cant just give out free additive power in the form of whole new abilities available at all times at no additional cost to SOME characters because they are monster themed. That just means everyone who isn't a croc man kinda sucks in comparison.

We cannot have free power like that. We cannot rope off all monstrous abilities to higher levels. We cannot rope off all items and other abilities from monstrous characters until higher levels.

A quick real but viable in combat Respec cost to switch into those additional abilities available to some characters is still additive power, but it's not FREE and unrestrained additive power, it's limited, it has a price, and the price isn't fucking up your power by level system.

A sword and a crocodile bite kinda need to be on the same character, on the same character sheet from an early level. A level at which the guy who isn't a crocodile JUST has a sword on theirs.

Unifying your active options limitations like I am suggesting and letting inactive options accumulate for you to select from at an actual formal cost, in or out of combat, is a viable way of dealing with these issues.

Simply declaring that being a croc man entitles you to access a free additional character power at all times or else your brain breaks is, rather clearly, the first missed step on one of those slippery slopes to ruin all the cool kids are into these days.

[deaddmwalking]

If croc-clubman is just human-clubman unless he switches out his club for croc powers the mechanics don't appear to support the narrative. I think that’s important. Not that balanced mechanical options aren't also important - personally I'm unwilling to sacrifice either.

Since your system is hypothetical (ie you have not costed croc bite vis-a-vis club attacks or confirmed whether they're both available at level 1) I'm not trying to use it as an example saying it can't be done. It is trivial to say a human with a kick attack and a club is the same as a croc-man with a bite attack and a club, for instance, so your system might allow both 'on-deck' at the same time in the final form. BUT it seems that there will be things that someone did last fight that would be appropriate in the current fight and creating a narrative justification for why an option ISN'T available detracts from the game.

This is not an observation without precedent. X/day abilities are MECHANICALLY balanced (at least in theory, we all know that it's not true) but strain credulity even in a world that accepts the existence of magic. I might generally walk at 4.8 miles an hour and I might generally get 15k steps per day, but I can push myself to run at 8mph (or 12 for short periods) or walk for hours and get 75k steps. It 'breaks people's minds' when they can't push themselves a little harder in the game... why can they do something 5 times in 30 seconds but then need 24 hours to recover, or do it once every 6 hours and never get 'tired' of it?

People expect a croc-man to be able to bite people. If he can't, there's a small but real strain on the narrative. Saying it is mechanically necessary has a different appeal to different audiences.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Your ideas about narrative are always very fragile and awfully conveniently just rule out whatever you are arguing against.

And it's silly. Being unable to bite this action is not being entirely unable to bite. Requiring an extra cost to bite (which is a voluntary cost you opted into by switching your bite out to the inactive option inventory) is not equivalent to removing it from the character profile, much less the entire narrative.

And you need explanation for characters not always using the same actions every time? Go to any fiction at all, go to any kind of log of actual TTRPG combat for any sufficiently complex system. Characters sometimes don't use their full library of previously seen actions in every combat. In fact if you really cared for narrative you might note that there is some narrative necessity for characters to gradually change over time.

But none of that has any relevance to what I just posted until you get to this.

... there's a small but real strain on the narrative. Saying it is mechanically necessary has a different appeal to different audiences.

Which is an accross the board dismissal of anything I said because you care more about even a small feel than any game mechanical impact.

Where you rate your subjective and convenient feels even when self described as small as being something you at least are rating as more important than than a game mechanical necessity. Not a mechanical convenience or luxury, a necessity.

Are you sure you wouldn't like to reword that?

To me stating that you put mechanical necessity behind even your smallest feels arguments rules you out of participating in discussions of game mechanics.

[deaddmwalking]

Your ideas about narrative are always very fragile and awfully conveniently just rule out whatever you are arguing against.

NPP, that completely fails to recognize or address that mechanics can have costs to the narrative space or discuss how you balance those two. I mean, surely you do balance narrative concerns against mechanical concerns to some degree, right? Trying to peg me as 'too concerned' doesn't mean that 'no level of concern is appropriate'. But you recognize that once you admit there's a line you'll also have to admit that you're on the wrong side of it compared to many (maybe MOST) people.

And it's silly. Being unable to bite this action is not being entirely unable to bite. Requiring an extra cost to bite (which is a voluntary cost you opted into by switching your bite out to the inactive option inventory) is not equivalent to removing it from the character profile, much less the entire narrative.

I granted that there are many situations where players will accept that they can't use their bite attack for some reason. It just happens that there's a qualitative distinction between 'because it doesn't make sense' (like my opponent is too far away or my mouth is currently bound closed) versus 'because the game mechanics don't allow it'. I've further agreed that 'because the game mechanics don't allow it' can still be a good excuse. If you made 6 attacks this round and one of them could have been your bite attack but you instead opted to use your thrown boot-dagger, players are going to accept that readily. BUT, when the player has a boot dagger and a croc-bite and the only reason they can't use one is because it is 'not active', that's going to cause some amount of cognitive dissonance.

And you need explanation for characters not always using the same actions every time? Go to any fiction at all, go to any kind of log of actual TTRPG combat for any sufficiently complex system. Characters sometimes don't use their full library of previously seen actions in every combat. In fact if you really cared for narrative you might note that there is some narrative necessity for characters to gradually change over time.

Thanks NPP. You've helped prove my point. When Harry Potter introduces the Time Turner, gallons of virtual ink were spilled demanding to know why it wasn't used to solve a host of other problems. The fact that it exists makes it a potential solution for any problem that comes up in the future. While that's not narratively satisfying, explaining away those solutions actually matters. Again and still, the level of discomfort YOU have with established solutions not being available in future scenes does not mean that NO level of discomfort is appropriate. Quite literally when you cannot apply the solutions from the past to the problems of the future you're disrupting the narrative flow. Unless you've taken the necessary step of explaining why a solution that has been established as working now no longer is.

... there's a small but real strain on the narrative. Saying it is mechanically necessary has a different appeal to different audiences.

Which is an accross the board dismissal of anything I said because you care more about even a small feel than any game mechanical impact.

Where you rate your subjective and convenient feels even when self described as small as being something you at least are rating as more important than than a game mechanical necessity. Not a mechanical convenience or luxury, a necessity.

Are you sure you wouldn't like to reword that?

To me stating that you put mechanical necessity behind even your smallest feels arguments rules you out of participating in discussions of game mechanics.

NPP, reading fail.

If croc-clubman is just human-clubman unless he switches out his club for croc powers the mechanics don't appear to support the narrative. I think that’s important. Not that balanced mechanical options aren't also important - personally I'm unwilling to sacrifice either.

In a board game you don't care that the Scotty Dog has the exact same movement as a Iron, or that Ms. Scarlett has the exact same investigative profile as Colonel Mustard, but an RPG is not a board game. We expect characters to have different abilities. If a character plans to showcase a new ability, we expect that there's some explanation for how they came to have it. Unlimited Respec could make sense in a Matrix-type game where you literally download the program you want directly into your brain and, assuming you have limited storage space, it totally makes sense that learning kung-fu writes over basic computer programming. That would be a case where narrative functions work in conjunction with mechanical expressions to create a system that meets the expectations of the players.

But outside of a narrative function, each time you have to explain away something not working as we would expect based on causality it costs you something. If you're not careful it costs you too much - people will be upset because you've created D&D 4th edition - they see it as a game STRIPPED of narrative coherence.

It is possible to balance mechanics with narrative function. It's weird to me that you think it makes sense that a croc-man can sheathe his mouth in exactly the same way he could his sword to activate fire powers. I am NOT arguing that it doesn't make sense that a character has to choose between options 'at hand' - you can either swing your sword OR punch someone - not both - but I AM saying that it's weird that those both wouldn't be 'on the table' at a given moment. And I further concede that I'm only using that as an example where an action cost to bring either choice online doesn't make sense BUT I AM NOT saying that is a choice you demand. It is not clear how many choices are 'at hand' and/or what action is required to 'switch' from your description - but it is clear that YOU PERSONALLY don't have any issues with something becoming unavailable without ANY narrative considerations as to why, AND THAT'S WEIRD.

But hey and again, I'm glad you've found something that has made you happy. I was (and will be) happy to let this go as a difference in preference if you don't bring my name into it. But let's not pretend that there are no valid reasons to object to a system like the one you propose. An expectation that the mechanics support the fiction isn't crazy.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

It is possible to balance mechanics with narrative function.

And yet you conveniently complain about your narrative feels in a one sided manner as always. Then you declared the counter arguments as "mechanical" and self described them as "necessity" while self describing your feels as "small".

That was very fucking telling and trying to obfuscate by falling back to "but I also said care about and want both!" doesn't mean dick because you, without prompting, already put yourself in a position of picking between the two and made it clear which side you fell on.

And lets not forget the things you are dismissing as, somehow less important, "mechanical necessity", are mechanical necessities... in order to represent things of narrative value.

Your croc men only appear once human fighters accumulate enough powers and abilities in a pile that it can account for what is basically croc man LA? Where is your care for narrative there?

Your game cannot represent as broad an array of characters with mixed dependence on items, body abilities, skills and spells. Where is your desire to support those narratives?

Even for truly purely mechanical concerns. If your game breaks down because you dismissed mechanical necessity... your narrative is gone because the game broke.

No. Narrative only ever goes one way with you. It applies narrowly and with a laser focus to allow you to label anything you dislike as a mechanical argument, and then dismiss it with no argument on your part other than "DeadDM doesn't like it".

We both know that your demand that croc bite always be available for free or it doesn't feel like a croc man is petulant and childish. We both know that if that demand is justifiable as a feels over mechanical needs argument then you could then sit down and demand "I need my croc bite to always be available for free or it just doesn't feel croc man enough for me" in contradiction of any mechanical necessity like Timing and Turn based rules structures.

Feels first arguments are unacceptable because they can apply to whatever you want to however you want to whenever you want to. Which is how you use them. It's poison for any discussion of actual game mechanical functions.

[deaddmwalking]

NPP

Nothing you said in your last post accurately reflects my position. I believe that everyone besides you will have no trouble understanding what my position is, and that no amount of additional clarification will help you.

For our system, a croc-man is a supported character concept at Level 1 - similar to a human who has an extra attack because they took unarmed strikes or 2-weapon fighting. While 2 attacks is rather powerful at 1st level that is an option available to everyone and not everyone chooses it because there are other good options and sometimes they fit the character better and provide enough mechanical benefit to justify the alternate choice.

I'm sure you could describe a character concept that I would describe as high level and that wouldn't be available to PCs in a level 1 game.

If you feel like taking the time to re-read my posts and accurately restate my position and ask for clarification or expansion, I will be happy to provide it.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I'm sure you could describe a character concept that I would describe as high level and that wouldn't be available to PCs in a level 1 game.

What. Like where the same thing happens with a concept that doesn't fit until level 2? Is that what you would describe as "high level"?

And just dismiss because...?

But going back to the posts you accuse me of not reading...

If a character plans to showcase a new ability, we expect that there's some explanation for how they came to have it.

Oh look a point which meets my prediction of you coming in here as half assed as usual and posting something proving you didn't actually grasp what I have said here.

Presenting that as something at odds with what I have presented just proves you have not been reading. Just as your continued misrepresentation of a small extra action cost to use an ability is the same as removing it, over writing it or FFS downloading it from the matrix?

FFS. Get it together for once, ever.

[deaddmwalking]

You know, you're derailing your own thread. Your most recent post doesn't expand or explain your ideas at all - it's just attacks at me without addressing the substance of any of my objections to implementing your system in any of my games.

If a character plans to showcase a new ability, we expect that there's some explanation for how they came to have it.

Oh look a point which meets my prediction of you coming in here as half assed as usual and posting something proving you didn't actually grasp what I have said here.

Presenting that as something at odds with what I have presented just proves you have not been reading. Just as your continued misrepresentation of a small extra action cost to use an ability is the same as removing it, over writing it or FFS downloading it from the matrix?

No, they don't manifest from nothing, why would they. You treat items like items. They are objects in the world you interact with physically. Pick them up, put them down, wear them as a suit, hit things with them.

If this is more a question of "I know where swords come from, do skills, spells and crocodile teeth just come from nowhere?" I think I've probably just indirectly covered that.

Hey PL, in the real world you can't pick up a bite attack by picking up a set of gator teeth at a truck stop in Florida. Making bite attacks a physical item that you loot from creatures you've killed has major ramifications for your setting.

If that's how you think the world should work, I think at a minimum you should explain HOW it works that way. If you can't offer ANY explanation then people will experience neurolagia. Did you completely miss how upset people were with the idea of doing half-damage on a missed attack?

We live in a world driven by an understanding of cause and effect. Lots of people get unreasonably upset by disassociative mechanics. This is a design discussion forum. If you're going to pick your mechanics and apply them to the game world damn the consequences, that's your right, but I'm trying to do you a solid by pointing out that in most instances, it's better to think about what you want the game world to look like and build mechanics in support of that vision.

But it's okay NPP, I don't need you to apologize or recognize that you're going in the wrong direction. And heck, if you want to build a game that appeals to only a single person, more power to you. Good luck with that.

[Foxwarrior]

Hey PL, in the real world you can't pick up a bite attack by picking up a set of gator teeth at a truck stop in Florida. Making bite attacks a physical item that you loot from creatures you've killed has major ramifications for your setting.

I'm pretty sure that NPLP mentioned at some point that he treats body parts and skills as items metaphorically rather than literally picking up and equipping gator teeth or kung fu. That is, much like unsheathing a sword, getting into an appropriate stance to bite people instead of stab them, or brushing off your old kung fu skills that you haven't practiced in a while, has some sort of action cost associated with it.

...Oh dear I must have missed a few posts because apparently you've been arguing about crocodiles for ages

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

I'm pretty sure that NPLP mentioned at some point that he treats body parts and skills as items metaphorically rather than literally picking up and equipping gator teeth or kung fu. That is, much like unsheathing a sword, getting into an appropriate stance to bite people instead of stab them, or brushing off your old kung fu skills that you haven't practiced in a while, has some sort of action cost associated with it.

I've been trying to draw him out to make his stupid picking up crocodile bites claim in a manner he cannot deny or back down from since he alluded to it in his first complaint on this thread. And now he finally did it. Bizarrely AFTER I showed my hand on it.

And yes. I DID already talk about exactly what you said.

And yes, exactly like what I said in the opening post. DeadDM has come in here whining about things that prove he hasn't even a basic grasp of what I have actually been saying.

Now, if I could just also get him to commit in a less deniable way to his other claim since his first post on his thread where he totally failed to notice another key part of my material...

[deaddmwalking]

NPP,

Thanks for noticing that saying 'treat everything like items' and then not actually treating them like items is self-defeating.