Warhammer 40k needs a "Furry" Faction + The Fensi

Yeah I said it.

Let's get real for a second. I think it's pretty obvious that this blog is kinda "furry". I consider myself a furry as well. Despite this, I have a sort of inherent dislike of things "trying too hard", the furry-fatigue saps my interest in a setting or piece of media. Things "too furry" ruin it for me; like a fantasy setting with humans, elves, and then ten different beastfolk race. I'm alright with humans only, I prefer a good mix, but I'm not alright with anthros only for fantasy unless it's for a very specific purpose. Stuff like Zootopia is fun for its visual gags and clever contrasting of species, but it's not really meant for high level worldbuilding. Beastars also gets a pass since its about its predator/prey dynamics and behavior with modern (Japanese) life. But stuff like Ironclaw I don't really gel with; I get the feeling like it's the most boring basic and low effort fantasy just with a furry coat of paint on top. (The artstyle doesn't help), but that's not really fair. It is 100% furry though; I just know it when I see it.

How do we define "furry"? The classic answer is anything involving anthropomorphic animals, ie; animals that walk upright and have humanoid features and usually talk or do behaviors outside of their normal natural behaviors, would be furry. But this isn't a sufficient definition; there are a lot of works of media featuring furries that are rarely considered furry. Redwall, for example, features exclusively anthropomorphic characters, but is rarely considered "furry" in itself; it is moreso one of the gateways into the furry fandom given its status as a children's book series.

There is a second shadow definition; roughly "would some fat guy jack off to this?". The more true you can see it, the more "furry" a furry thing is. But it's not really fair to write off anything because it's someones fetish, the Space Wolves Space Marines are 100% bait for a wolfaboo 40k enjoyer; but they're also still really fucking cool. So what it comes down to is a balance between the projected "self indulgent creator" something has, and the thematic value that can be extracted from its constituent parts.

But how "furry" is something and how can we create something of the right balance? It's not as easy as it first appears. There are tons of anthropomorphic animal people in fantasy and sci-fi fiction, but that doesn't automatically make them furry. In the same way you see a cool lizardman from Warhammer fantasy and can still say it's a little furry but it's much less furry then say a werewolf. "Werewolves are cool monsters though!" I know, but they're a "furry" monster. But a werewolf is still much less furry then a dog anthro, which is in turn less furry then a sparkledog. Part of this comes down to species, the presentation, and its role in the media work, story, or whatever else.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are some traits I've narrowed down to signal if a anthropomorphic species, faction, or character is furry.

• Mammals are more furry then other animal species. Canids get extra points.
• More rare species are more furry. Such as a maned wolf being more furry then a standard wolf.
• Unique coloration or markings; especially born with it. Heterochromia free space.
• Hybrids or extra animal body-parts are significantly more furry then a regular baseline creature of its real world counterpart species. Ugly or monstrous mutations are less furry; ie Warhammer Beastmen are less furry then a winged fox-wolf hybrid for example.
• Good aligned or at least positively viewed in its work. If they be subject to unfair treatment, then the audience is supposed to view it as them overcoming oppression/surviving being persecuted unfairly. They never deserve it. Overlapping trait with general Mary Sue profile.
• Usually magical; and closely related to nature and/or moral power systems. You're much more likely to see a "furry" character practicing chi manipulation or elemental magic then being imbued with cybernetics or using dark necromancy spells, for example.
• Cute, or at least drawn in a favorable way. Age range tends towards the young adult/author self-insert age, but almost never old/gray/haggard/scarred/etc. Disabilities, trauma, or other flaws are usually invisible or relegated to the aesthetic facial scar category.
• If violent; high level of proficiency, though rarely aggressive or domineering. "Hidden Badass" trope. Speed & Skill is usually preferred over brute strength, but this is dependent on species.
• Stereotypical traits of the animal species its based on, but rarely the more unsavory elements. ie; Bears are big, honest, love honey, and may hibernate but don't practice random infanticide for example.
• Sexual or romantic profile exactly as author's home culture; usually modern 2000s leniency towards homosexuality & casual sex; with mutual consent being most important factor as opposed to natural mating behaviors of its species or a more traditionalist culture. High degree of fetish content is specific to sexual content/porn, not that common in "normal" furry creation.
• Genders are almost always treated equally. Sexual dimorphism, if any, is regulated to appearance and is based solely on the host species.

So working backwards from this list, how do we create something "furry"? Well firstly, it must be adapted to its genre or host-work. Which leads me to part two.

Warhammer 40k & Faction Design
So 40k is a grimdark setting. Most of the races are engaged in genocidal wars with the other factions, meaning cooperation is very limited. While it's not "species = faction" given things like the Eldar vs Dark Eldar and the many, many human factions, but it's pretty close. The sole notable exception are the Tau, who are one of the few multi-species factions and are kind of meant to be the "tragic doomed good guy" faction in some ways. Even with this, some 40k fans think they're a bit toothless and don't fit with the general vibe of the setting; so our furry faction will have to be at least as bad as them, if not worse.

Disclaimer: I have never played or know anything about 40k besides what I read on wikis. So this entire exercise is just was wank as your own personal headcanon. If anything, maybe moreso, since there are probably other species or groups in 40k that deserve to be a faction way more then anything I could create; and that's valid. For this blogpost, I did at least do a little research, since the 40k game design element of this is what I'm least well equipped to handle in the "just making shit up" category.

Besides the grimdark element, each faction in 40k tends to have different unique traits. While there are many human factions that share similar aesthetics and technological basis, each Xeno species has a few traits across all of them that might work as a basis.

Species	Human / Imperium	Eldari / Dark Eldar
Physical	Humans	Elf (Better humans)
Tech	Ancient, Bulky, Industrial	Magictechish
Aesthetics	Iconography, Gothic, “Used Future”	Organic but not biotech
Gameplan	Varies (Diverse)	Fast & Mobile
Magic/Psionics	Chaos-susceptible, dangerous psykers	High emotions need restraint
Ideology	Fascist Empire w/ Theocratic tone	Independent & Conservative

Species	Ork	Tyranids
Physical	Green, Big, Brutish, Fungal	Insectoid; just Xenomorphs
Tech	Scavenged	True biotech & natural traits
Aesthetics	Scrap, Chaotic, Tribal	Limbs, splines, carapace
Gameplan	GO IN	Swarm (big monsters sometimes)
Magic/Psionics	Gestalt belief-field	Hive-Mind
Ideology	Tribal, “Might makes Right”	Survival/Animal

Species	Tau	Necrons
Physical	Various (Multi-Species)	Machine, Skeletal
Tech	Automatons, Cutting-Edge	Alienware Sarcophagi
Aesthetics	Mecha-inspired, sleek, utopian	Egyptian, Terminator
Gameplan	Ranged shooters	Tank Everything
Magic/Psionics	None	Rewrite reality, Matrix-code
Ideology	Real Politik, Communistic	Domination

Ideally, any new factions would want to have something that's different about them to all the other factions in each of these categories, while keeping in mind the medium they're being designed for. For example, you wouldn't want to make an army more hoard-y then the Tyranids; trying to fit any more pieces on a board then that would just be annoying. Likewise a faction of giant flying space psychic space whales might also be cool; but would be awkward in the context of a tabletop wargame.

Quick side note: Only now reading this do I realize how little of the "each species has one biome" thing 40k actually does. It's refreshing, because it's probably my biggest pet peeve in sci-fi. But at the same time, it'd be rather unique to do something like it, given the all-encompassing nature of 40k's races; that sort of flavor is mostly reserved for individual factions or space marine chapters and the like. 

Of course, the real answer of "what should the new faction of 40k be" is the myraid of unexplored factions and species already existent in the setting people have been wanting to see for a long time. They might be more deserving, and I'm sure your headcanon is more legitimate then mine. But this is just for fun; so what's a unique "furry" faction we could add distinct to the rest? (And if the Tau pissed off the neckbeards back in the day, oh boy).

The Fensi
Originating from their desert-dominated homeworld of Hassalude, the Fensi are a race of anthropomorphic canids similar in appearance to Fennec Foxes from earth. Their huge ears meant to help locate prey and cool off in the harsh desert conditions where they evolved are their primary distinguishing feature. After being born, Fensi kits quickly grow to a large size with long and disproportionately slender limbs, and die of old age in just a few short Terran years. However, due to a unique element of their culture, the Fensi can live much longer then their natural lifespan during which they slowly shrink in size. This confounds members of the other races, especially the Orks, but to the Fensi, the smallest among them are the oldest and richest, because of their access to Lux.

Lux is a unique substance cultivated by the Fensi. It's a type of specially processed water infused with psionic energy; farmed in special condenser farms and gardens by underclass workers. It can only be gathered on living planets, but seems to keep a store of all the psionic energy of beings who live within its water-cycle. Beyond being perfectly shelf-stable, drinkable, and resisting evaporation from the harsh desert wind, making it a trading currency to their early cultures; Lux is also known to infuse the drinker with an accumulation of psionic energy. While its original effects may have only been related to the health-benefits of good hydration, Lux has been so valued and singularly important in their capitalistic culture that it has become a vessel for value, power, and importance itself; the very drive to acquire Lux has made it more potent.

The Fensi culture is that of competition, hierarchy, and opportunity. While they have laws that protect individuals and private enterprise; their entire culture is about the accumulation of wealth (Lux) by the wealthiest that is often taken from the poorest. Because of their biology, young Fensi are the main laborers, using their big bodies to tend to the gardens and dig for insects to eat, eventually dying of old age in just a few short years if their lips never had a taste of Lux. Trade unions and mercenary armies make up the middle classes, to who which belong Fensi that are shorter and more stout in stature; similar in size to a regular Imperium human. Finally, the aristocrats of their race are the smallest of all, looking more like an upright talking fox instead of a powerful and dangerous Xeno. But this appearance can be deceiving, as these Fensi are the most powerful in their culture; with innate psionic protection and strength making them formidable foes.

Beyond their capitalistic traits, Fensi love art and luxury of all kinds. They prefer colorful clothing and dress, and even reflect this in their machines and military uniforms. Rare artifacts from other civilizations are traded freely and openly in Fensi bazaars and markets; with no regard for possible contamination by Chaos or restricted technology. While Slaanesh primarily gorges herself on the souls of the Elder; the much decadent Fensi upperclass may one day draw her eye.

Fensi tools, weapons, and even spaceships are all powered by Lux. This single-minded approach to resources has made their industry second only to the Imperium in grand scale. Unlike the Imperium however, the Fensi are very capitalistic. Their primary motivation to explore the galaxy and expand is profit and acquiring more Lux, first and foremost. Instead of exterminating another species on sight, they'd much prefer to barter and trade with them, but always to the benefit of whatever Fensi struck up the deal. Their power structure is colonial and imperialistic; establishing colonies on many worlds to suck up their "living water" using private mercenary armies and underhanded tactics to try and make a profit. They are willing to cooperate with many species in the galaxy, but only for the pursuit of wealth.

Fensi Factions
Whipsands Trading Co.
This corporation prides itself on being the largest and most expansive entity in Fensi space; creating monopolized worlds and many exploitive colonies on many foreign worlds. It is defended by its own private army; though it much prefers to expand through trade contract and hostile takeover over direct force whenever possible. It's most powerful members are the board of directors, who are the original founders of the company still alive since the very first of their race left their planet to explore the galaxy and gain profit from it.

Fensi Scouts- Light infantry sometimes found on foot or on the back of a younger long-limbed Fensi. These scouts are simultaneously skirmishers and skilled wilderness surveyors and prospectors, looking for watery oases in desert worlds or being bundled up to explore ice worlds.

Scout Gyrocopter- Fensi Scouts positioned in a flying machine, used for surveying the battlefield and taking weak, low damage potshots at enemies within a very long range. (I don't know 40k flying unit rules so I assume this would just be annoying and not OP)

Fensi Infantry- The standard Fensi infantry are middle-aged Fensi; shortened and stocky closer to human proportions. They wear elaborate costumes and fight in long line formations with their one-shot Lux Muskets. While not very mobile and not strong in melee, their mass shooting can be very deadly and they are well disciplined to be paid to keep order for the company.

Fensi Cavaliers- More heavily armored middle-aged Fensi with multiple carbines for a draw-and-fire approach. They ride on the back of large, younger Fensi.

Fensi Artillery- Powerful cannons using a variety of ammunition types. I imagine this as literally just a Napoleonic wars era type artillery cannon.

Cannonback- Artillery pieces put on the back of young Fensi, who carry them around to either fire a single inaccurate medium range explosive shot or can run into enemies to perform a kamikaze attack.

Fensi Grenadiers- Young Fensi wearing military dress and colorful uniforms, armed with shovels, axes, grenades, and Brewster style body-armor. Meant to break through enemy fortifications and act as a slightly heavier infantry. When each one is killed they drop live grenades as a small trick, taking out their own as well as enemies in melee range.

Bladetank- Large tanks powered by flywheels and Lux-devices; the entire outside is adorned with spinning blades and spikes. Primarily used as a method of breaking up worker revolts; it is a devastating vehicle made for melee combat and rushing into enemy infantry.

LuxWell- Large hovering shrine containing a large amount of Lux with many watering cans and urns besides, marked with company insignia. Designed as a sort of support unit that buffs nearby units (especially Elder Fensi). Kinda meant to be like a Tyranid Brain unit, but vulnerable if attacked directly.

Fensi Elder- Tiny Vulpera sized fox sitting on a self-propelled throne. (I like to imagine them in powdered wigs and frilly outfits, but anything regal and expensive will do). They are expensive in points and are usually named characters. They don't attack physically instead using psionic powers or telepathic suggestion to destroy opponents. Similar to the theme of slow but strong units reliant on positioning; the Fensi Elders would have turning rules but be extremely strong in close combat, having a death cone of attack in front of them you don't want to get funneled into. 

Worker Union
Because of the Fensi's capitalistic culture, the majority of their population exist within an exploited underclass. With short lifespans and tech-enforced monopolies on all trade and property; a growing resistance is brewing in the Fensi's lower and middle classes. While much poorer then the Whipsands corporation, the newly created Worker Union attempts to make up for it in numbers and cooperation. In the grim darkness of the future; there is only class warfare.

Fensi Burrowers- Fensi prefer to live underground in burrows; some little more then a hole in the ground and others elaborate subterranean palaces. The first step to all are burrowers; shovel-wielding very-young Fensi given limited armor and no training or expectation of survival. These Fensi can be used to create emergency cover or tunnels on a battlefield, or thrown into the enemy as an expendable shock troop.

Farmer Militia- Small land-owning farmers who can only create a meager amount of Lux, constantly pushed to sell their properties or in competition to larger corporations. Armed with simple flintlock Lux guns and machetes used for cutting vegetation now act as cheap but flexible infantry.

Arsonists- Those who burn factories and plantations of the wealthy classes; repurposed as a regular unit. Luxfire hits a zone on the table and stays for a long time, but can be instantly snuffed by the controlling player as a sort of unique area-control tool.

Abolistionist- Cool Elder Fensi riding a motorcycle (maybe a monowheel or old timey-bike with one big and one small wheel), who is a much more mobile but less powerful version of the Fensi Elder. They'd move around the battlefield getting to do AoE blasts around them in a small range each turn, prioritizing hit and run tactics or maybe they could "reverse polarity" and suck enemies towards them making them really good when matched with artillery, which are of course way more expensive for this faction or you need to pull enemies into Luxfire, or something like that.

Species	Fensi
Physical	Anthromorphic Animal-People (Foxes)
Tech	Retrofuturistic, Hand-Crafted, Hydraulic
Aesthetics	Desert Traders, Military Dress, Steampunk, Fantasy-Bazaar
Gameplan	Area Denial & Defensive Depth
Magic/Psionics	Wealth is Power
Ideology	Capital Exploitation & Colonialism

Design Goals
Basically I was trying to make something a little different but still fit in the world of 40k. I don't think it fits very well into 40k in my opinion; too much like a historical fantasy and not sci-fi enough and without the brutal grimdarkness. Notice how most 40k races have at least some kind of conversion or massive survival tactic like Necrons being unkillable machines or Orks having a fungal lifecycle. The Fensi are perfect as one of those xenos the Imperium wiped out centuries ago at least, don't really know if it has the "juice" of a full fledged faction. They'd probably just be a Tau side-species if anything.

Design wise? I don't know enough about 40k factions to say what kind of gameplay is unique. But I think a faction focused on slow and restricted units (like flintlocks who have to reload for a turn, or area-denial artillery and so on) that are strong but very clunky to use are interesting in the context of modern firearms, psionic spells, hovertanks, and other 40k-ish staples. This could totally already exist in the game though and I just wouldn't know any better. Overall, I don't think it's very good, but was fun to come up with.

Why aren't TTRPGS more like Paper Mario + Granular Damage Upgrades

When it comes to TTRPGs and their video game cousins, the obvious D&D inspired games come to mind first. But one thing I find weird is the seeming rarity and lack of "very low number" games. Paper Mario & Thousand Year Door are the most prominent; along with their more modern offspring like Bug Fables. Specifically; games with turn based combat, small scale battles with few characters or units, and very small damage numbers; typically ranging from 1-9 as a soft maximum for "normal" attacks, usually only accessible very late in the game. Instead, much more of the focus is placed on things like timing imputs to increase damage or reduce incoming damage, status effects, resource management in the form of consumable items and FP/TP/abilities, specific attack types and their counters (spike on head = can't jump on them) and target priority. While some of these are video game specific, most of the elements could be translated directly into a tabletop RPG style game with no issue. The strange thing is I really haven't seen it done before. I'm sure there are some smaller games that have similar systems in place; but the closest I can think of is something akin to fantasy wargaming or Warhammer-like games. This fits for them because making the many hundreds of units and models as complex as your average D&D character would be too daunting; so simple wound or instant-death mechanics, armor counted as single numbers which must be met or beat by attacks similar to Paper Mario defense; with dice more deciding individual outcomes over granular damage/health systems is a good fit here. Ironic that the game-mechanics I'm thinking would be the simplest and most immediately useful system for TTRPGs goes right back to the hobby's roots.

The benefits of such a system? Small numbers keep match simple and easily approachable. There is a level of strategy that is present here that isn't in more "swingy" dice-combat games like D&D. Hit Dice are a good approximation of how much health an enemy has, but even a d6 weapon has six possible outcomes, meaning any approximation of your resources in how many more turns it may take to defeat this enemy, or how much ammunition or spell-dice you need to use, or how many bandages you need to use to heal someone; etc. could all be off by about six times your estimate. It's unlikely, but a possibility. With a smaller number system, you can predict these things much more. Secondly, you create more immediate and obvious strategic depth in its basic systems. Defense reducing all incoming damage by +1 is much more obvious then a D&D esque weapon vs Armor-Class penetration rate; even though you know padded armor gives you +2 AC against blunt weapons or whatever, how much damage does it actually prevent? First you have to calculate the chance of the attack and then the average damage on a roll and so on, where as a Paper Mario system doing something similar is just -1 to damage. Very simple. Abilities that penetrate or remove armor (or grant bonus damage) are immediately obvious in how they'll influence the outcome of a battle. You can't grant +1 to a character's Attack per level up or +1 Defense per small gear upgrade for example, it'd be way too overwhelming and quickly break the math of the game- games with larger numbers have a lot more leeway. Plus, the smaller numbers makes moments of bigger impact grander and more memorable. I won't really notice when enemies start doing 1000 damage to me if the last fight they were doing 500+; but you will remember the first time a boss or a mob hits you for 10 damage in a Paper-Mario-Like. That's reserved for the "oh shit" moments. I also find systems like this more fun to mess around with, as there is a certain challenge to designing in such a tight space; But more on this later.

Of course, there are good reasons why we don't use this "small number" system for TTRPGs: Granularity. Highly granular systems allow for smaller advantages or changes that can adapt for more situations; a +1 to hit on a d20 is a fair benefit for a racial bonus or background feature of a character to show a varied and complete person as simulated in the game world. Giving a +1 to your Attack in a Paper Mario esque system could translate to a 50% increase or more; which means it could be many, many sessions or power-ups or require a big in-universe justification for this increase. Second, it also greatly reduces the amount of variety and "fuzz" of the rules, meaning situations play out with less randomness and encounter design has to be stricter. D&D can already kinda be solved in a math-y way but with a system like this it would get way worse. Players could potentially figure out the outcome of any given fight or encounter, leading to a more boring or "pass/fail" style of gameplay that wouldn't be as fun in my opinion. There might be some strategic value in knowing that you can always beat an ogre at your level (it does 3 damage a turn to you, you do 4 damage to it, and it has 20 health, so as long as you have at least 13 health and you can go first you know you can win), I don't think it's the kind of strategy or "character building" most people want to play TTRPGs for.

Also, obviously, it's because rolling dice is fun and tied to the wargaming roots of the hobby. This system necessitates dice rolling as being less important, and therefore, the most fun part of the hobby is less represented. All of this is obvious, and doesn't need to be stated by a pseudointellectual like myself. So instead, we're going to end this rant prematurely and go on to the game theory bit that's actually good.

How to add Damage Upgrades for Small Number Systems
Specifically for a Bug Fables or Paper Mario-like game or a TTRPG with a similar setup.

As stated above adding a +1 Damage modifier is only something you can do very occasionally as it throws the entire game out of whack. So how do we have meaningful character progression? The first way are increases to non-direct stats. So increased chance to hit, ease of minigame success, increased maximum hit points, having stronger or more varied access to moves and status effects, etc. This is already covered above. But how do we actually do more damage? Without relying on these conditionals or random chance mechanics? Instead, we do it based on damage deference and the action economy.

Abilities that pierce Defense could count as a damage increase. For example, you can upgrade your attack so it ignores one point of the opponent's Defense. This effectively means it deals +1 damage against armored opponents. However, I consider this a sidegrade, because it doesn't increase your damage to non-armored targets. While it is still an improvement (obviously if the choice is between an attack with one pierce and an attack with the same damage and zero pierce it's still better) it's still a conditional and will usually have some kind of opportunity cost. As such, this is more of a sidegrade then a direct improvement to our damage.

Another low impact upgrade that's more granular and modular is bonus damage over a long period, which I'm calling long-distance damage. Something like a "deals one bonus damage in ten turns" which upgrades into a "deals one bonus damage in nine turns" count as a form of progression but are so granular that they miss the breakpoint of the system. While technically being identical to an increase of +0.1 damage for our attack it won't factor in to most combats if the enemies we're fighting have reasonable (small) HP pools and our attacks deal at least 2-5 damage a turn with proper setup. You could also use this for a damage improvement mechanic but it's very boring and lame.

Finally, the other is "bonus damage per X turns of combat". Something like a charge or initiative bonus, where you get +1 damage on the first round of combat. Upgrade it, now you get +1 damage on the first two rounds of combat, and so on. While technically a damage increase, it's also a conditional (based on turn number) and once again too strong for what we are going for (small granular improvements to our attack power). So how we increase our damage output for a basic attack that has immediate effect (turn by turn), based directly on turn order/effective for the action economy, not based on a conditional or resource, and not superficial or too granular to be useful?

Stage Zero- Basic Attack
Deals a set amount of damage in one or more hits. This is the vanilla attack, or zero investment.

Stage One- Basic Attack w/ Vulnerability Frame
Deals a set amount of damage and makes the enemy vulnerable to damage (taking +1 damage) if you hit them again in the following turn. The reason why this is a small granular increase of effective damage here is because it's a one turn status effect, which means you have to capitalize on it for next turn or you lose it. This means if you are stunned, need to block or heal, out of magic point for your attack, enemy moves, etc. you cannot capitalize on it. This could also be improved one or more times (by making this vulnerability last one or more extra turns) but this I would not consider an effective increase in our damage output enough to count as a higher "stage" of damage improvement, as it is simply a more convenient method of +1 damage.

Stage Two- Basic Attack w/ Deferred Damage
Deals a set amount of damage and the enemy will take +1 damage after their next turn. The after part is important. If the status effect did damage at the start of the turn, it would be functionally identical to a damage increase when it matters. (ie; enemy has 1 HP remaining after you hit them, at the start of the their turn means they can't act as they are defeated which is the same as if you just did +1 damage to them on your turn.) But by having it happen after their turn, the enemy can take their turn/action (potentially being saved by a heal or dealing damage to you) AND THEN takes the additional damage point, effectively giving your attack +1 damage when it CAN'T hit the breakpoint of stopping an enemy's action.

Stage Three- Basic Attack that deals +1 Damage
Deals a set amount of damage +1. Effective and immediate damage increase.

This three stage system is the most granular method of increasing damage in a way that actually changes the turn economy (ie; defeating an enemy before another turn can pass). Obviously game mechanics can be much deeper then this, but at its core mathematical principles, this one could serve as the basis for a character to advance their attack power in a game like this in a way that's actionable. So instead of getting a +1 Attack badge, you'd have to equip three to get that same effect, and each badge would give you the next stage. If you had four advancements in this system, then the attack would do +1 damage and give a 1 turn vulnerability frame and so on.

The one thing the 2005 Wonka movie absolutely nails

Don't worry this isn't some clickbait "the 2005 Wonka Movie is better then you remember" sort of thing. Given its age, the Tim Burton film fails squarely in that shitty cgi "reimagining" and first wave of bad-to-mediocre remakes (I don't know if this one is bad though I'm not a critic). I have a lot of nostalgia for this film, as it's the one I watched as a kid. I never saw the 1964 film (but I did read the original book) until much later as an adult going on my "classic movies" craze. I think I watched it during covid. Now with a more critical eye; I can certainly appreciate the original film more. I think it has that sort of comfy, shot on film atmosphere that old films have. They are both very "on acid" feeling movies though.

There's something interesting about films like this. It tries to be a remake that tells its own story, a fresh modern coat of paint on an older product, but when you look at it now it's terribly dated and very set in its era of mid 2000s clean aesthetic. It's been superseded by an even newer film; which may one day also be replaced by an even newer remake. That's the thing about remake culture, the new shiny one eventually gets replaced, which will leave behind ugly, awkward middle children who are neither the timeless classics nor the shiny new thing.

However, every piece of media is influenced by the time and period in which it was created. There's something about this film in particular that it does really, really well; and that's modernizing some of the "bad kid" characters. Ultimately Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is about succession and parenthood, and about how ultimately it's the parents who make bad kids. The other kids are spoiled, but Charlie gets nothing. So Charlie is the good kid, and so he is rewarded, while the others are punished. It's a very classic Christian myth.

But there's one character in particular the 2005 film does so much better then the original it isn't even close. I'm genuinely a little surprised there isn't more talk about it. 

The Kids & Their Moral Failings
In Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, each kid that breaks the rules of the factory does so because of a huge character flaw. The Oompa Loompas songs tell us what each kid did wrong, but also make sure to hint that the problem with each kid really stems from their parents. Augustus is too hedonistic and greedy, and his parents don't stop him or set boundaries for his health or well-being. Veruca Salt is just a terrible spoiled brat who was never told no to anything by her rich parents. Mike Teavee is media obsessed and lives in fantasy; characterized by Westerns in the first film (that era of brainrot slop) and video games in the second. If a new one was made in today's zeitgeist he'd probably be watching tiktok. Out of all of kids; the most forgettable one is probably Violet (except as the source of that weird inflation/blueberrification fetish), and in the original film her characterization and "flaw" is probably the weakest out of all of the kids. She... chews gum? Obviously it's a pet peeve of Roald Dahl, but it really isn't some indication of some massive character flaw other then being a gross habit. In the book she's fleshed out more; being more rude and gossipy, so the "chewing all day" thing could kinda be seen as a shorthand for talking behind people's back and being a rude, nasty child. Perhaps this could hint at the kind of no-restrictions parenting that allows children to have bad habits; being rude to people with no filter, chewing gum, maybe even leading to smoking or other bad behaviors. Obviously this is a very liberal interpretation. But then, look at the remake handled it.

Instead of just chewing gum as a bad habit, it's recontextualized as a competition; trying to get the world record in chewing the same piece of gum. Her entire character is reworked towards the idea of being a sort of over-achieving, competitive, nasty kid who thinks they have infinite potential and the arrogance behind it. And this is absolutely perfect for the moral failing of her mother.

Remember, this movie came out in the early 2000s, which was the era defined by helicopter parenting. Bad parent/child relationships are common among every generation, that's how generational trauma works (and raising kids isn't easy) but specifically I feel this era was where people really started to take a critical eye to these over-achiever, "living vicariously through my child" type of people, and putting up warnings in media to basically say why this is a bad thing. This was even the height of the craze (at least that I can remember) of the knee-jerk overblown reaction to things like participation trophies in schools and attendance awards; and while not directly related to Violet's character, it's part of the cultural undercurrent.

Look at their living room. In a panning shot for this scene, we see yet more trophies on another glass shelf before it cuts to Violet and her mother standing there, in identical athletic suits. There are no toys in this room. Across from there are a bunch of reporters to which Violet describes wanting to find the ticket, and be "better" then all the other ticket winners and be the one kid to "claim the special prize". The entire time, her mother is staring at her intensely with a crazed expression, like making sure she doesn't fumble her words or make a single mistake in front of all these reporters. She makes sure to show off her own trophies and awards, but the focus is clearly on her child. The father is not in the picture. Even her winning the ticket, something that should be appreciated as sheer luck and random chance, is chalked up to being her skill or yet again an achievement to work towards.

While it's not really accurate to the book; children and their problems aren't really the same as they were in 1964. I feel like this era, the era of the internet and mass media but not-quite social media was the perfect conditions for this very specific type of person; ambitious and driven, but not in a good way. Overly obsessed with looks and superficial value. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, and with a world ever-shrinking in personal possibilities as every sport and industry became hyper optimized; the "Ripley's Believe It or Not" era of achievement was in full force. Amass pointless awards and world records even if they mean nothing; being a world champion gum chewer is a perfect shorthand for this kind of achievement. It doesn't represent any kind of personal growth or societal problem being solved; it's just a big number for your own ego. And her mother is the one behind it all; wanting her child to succeed and placing this pressure on her not because it would make her happy, but because she has to just be the best. You're the best kid, so I'm the best mom. Looking up the scene online, I've seen some people say there was a "mother vs daughter competitiveness" thing going on here, but I really don't see it. Violet's mom even says "She's just a driven young woman. I have no idea where she gets it.". I think it's pretty clear. She's a tiger mom.

Coming from someone who is a bit of an underachiever myself; I can't say I've been the victim of this kind of parenting myself. I have no trauma. But I did have friends who did. Kids who were literally afraid of showing their report card to their parents, kids who were in multiple clubs and HAD to be Valedictorian and HAD to have all AP classes and just HAD to get into the best collages and so on. It's not that working hard and achieving things is bad, it's the fact that parents do it their kids in a destructive and unhealthy way. I think it's easy to forget what it was like as a kid, because as an adult at some point you realize that you'll never live up to your full possible potential, you'll accept it. There are always people better then you, but also people worse. You can always sink into mediocrity and feel some comfort in it. You're at the age where you know people fail and burn out, so you can take things a little easier yourself, at least mentally. No matter how arrogant you are, this grounds you. But kids don't have this. Their parents word is law, and their approval is the most important thing in the world. It's no longer get a bad grade and feel bad because of that, it's get a bad grade and make your mom or dad upset and disappointed in you, and that's much worse. This version of Wonka has a much better Violet for this reason, because it's a cautionary tale that if you hollow out your child and fill them with your dreams instead of theirs, and put all the pressure on them to succeed at any cost, it turns out that eventually they'll blow up.

What's the Fourth Role?

The holy trinity of combat roles in cooperative video games (popularized by MMOs) are the Tank, DPS, and Support. Later on, these roles became more commonplace in competitive and cooperative games; even designing game systems around them such as Overwatch or Marvel Rivals with its hero shooter elements with characters in dedicated roles. More flexible games may allow characters of various classes to offset these roles; like a Warrior being able to specialize more in damage by dual-wielding weapons or carrying one weapon and a shield for "tanking". It's important to note this distinction transcends class, race, weapon choice, etc. this is the ROLE in which this character or player is supposed to be played. It goes beyond the "class fantasy".

For a combat focused game; I think you can't do much better then the holy trinity. I don't honestly have a problem with it. Tabletop games have a slightly different, though similar approach to this, but we get more into the class fantasy stuff later. For multiplayer video games, the common sentiment is that this trinity can't be broken because it encompasses all the of the possible interactions in the game space; Dealing damage, surviving damage, and reversing damage are pretty much all of the direct interactions you can have with another team of players or NPC monsters in a standard game not related to game specific gimmicks or mechanics; which go outside the scope of this role breakdown.

Note: I also feel I should mention here that it's likely equally as viable (and perhaps more interesting) if these basic roles just do the same things as usual but in different ways. Like a burst healer vs a regeneration healer, or a tank who gains stacking defensive buffs to reduce their damage taken or regenerates a portion of damage dealt, or a "dodge tank", etc. The flavor of the exact mechanics can vary and make characters and roles feel unique even if they all eventually boil down to "do damage and don't die". 

The most commonly put out 4th role to this system is a split of the support and healer role; usually with a debuff or crowd-control focus being on the 4th new role and a sole focus of healing and sustaining on the healer class. While I quite like this thematically; the issue is that very few games actually have such an important focus on crowdcontrol or buffs/debuffs that an entire role needs to be dedicated to it. Imagine a game where a person buffing your damage output was as necessary as a healer; you would have to do so little damage at baseline that the game would be extremely unfun. So to if you couldn't survive against a wave of enemies if you literally didn't have this 4th Mezzmer class to stun them; then trying to complete this content or dungeon or whatever would be extremely reliant on some kind of specific mechanic; more like a puzzle then a fair and creative combat arena. Many games instead split these abilities up and across the other roles; Tanks having the stuns or shields or slows that keep enemies from getting too aggressive, and Supports having escape abilities, shields, or buffs as part of their kit to improve teammate effectiveness when not directly dealing damage. Damage-Dealers tend to have the least of these moves but that's because they are also the most effective role at actually completing the objective (killing people) and are differentiated from tanks with having high mobility or range; so it's a fair trade off; but sometimes they get stuff like short term stuns or mobility-reducing tools to make it easier to finish off opponents.

The other issue with making the 4th role a Support/Buff/Debuff specialist is if the game also features solo play. Since your type of interaction is "support allies/reduce enemy effectiveness" you have the worst solo effectiveness right besides the healer, who at least gets to heal themselves. If anything you could break the class Trifecta down further into just two sides of a coin; Damage Dealers & Support. Because let's face it; in most games, tanks CAN also do damage. It's no fun if you literally can't hurt enemies, and in MMOs especially tanks need to be able to grab enemy aggro, so there is really a sliding scale between survival/offensive power between tanks & dps classes. This is even a common role in some games; something like a "Bruiser" or "Off-Tank" which has some of the properties of both these roles.

Another 4th possible role, and a personal favorite of mine is the "utility". This sounds similar to the above Support/Buff/Disabler role but instead more focuses on providing some kind of useful non-numerical combat advantage to their team, similar to an Engineer from TF2 with teleporters, some of the operatives in Rainbow Six Siege providing vision and information, the XP soak and map control of a Lost Vikings player in Heroes of the Storm, etc. The problem with this role is it isn't as universal across all games and game-modes, and is often too character specific. For example off the top of your head you could easily imagine five different DPS characters with different primary weapons; pistols, shotguns, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, flamethrower. Without even giving you any more information how these characters are or what skills or stats they may have; you can already imagine five different playstyles and unique ranges where these characters could be useful and fit the DPS role. The issue with a utility character is five different variation of "deployable teleporter that get your teammates back in the fight quicker" isn't nearly as interesting and doesn't conjure up ideas of different gameplay. It also has an issue with the game and map design. 

For example, if the game has only one game mode, like a standard 5v5 MOBA, then a utility character fully focused on map control and pushing waves that doesn't interact as much with the enemy team is fine. But now if the developers wanted to add a 4v4 arena deathmatch mode; this character would be almost useless. Contrary, if they added a 3 to 5 player PvE cooperative mode where you defend a fortress from waves of enemies; this character could instead become extremely broken and stronger then all the others because it was designed with the mindset that it'd be weak in a straight up fight (outside the holy trinity) but strong in the macrogame sense. It can also be annoying from the "dps is fun and healing isn't" perspective. If your game featured a character that can give other characters flight for a limited time, that power would be extremely strong and a desirable character on your team. But why play the guy that gives other people flight when you could be the cool gun character that kills everyone now with wings? Healers are already a role developers have to coerce players into playing with bonus XP and strong mechanics because nobody wants to be the "support" that enables their teammates to do everything. There's also just less ideas that work to fully design a character's kit around that aren't tied to damage/combat in some way; partially because we've been acclimatized to games where combat is the main/only focus, so it's naturally much more deep and complex feeling then most other game systems out there.

Of course, this entire Tank/Healer/DPS paradigm is related to combat focused competitive games. Games without combat or with a much different focus don't have the same goals and your characters will be different, and as such, players will instead have different roles.

Fighter, Rogue, Mage
The classic fantasy archetypes of Fighter, Rogue, and Mage are extremely common in fantasy fiction, and act as a sort of basis for character classes and choices. I personally really like this setup, even though I think it suffers from some very specific limitations. If you boiled down every class to its core elements, removing all the setting-specific fluff, it would come down to one of these three archetypes or a combination of them. But notice how these archetypes exist without a gameplay loop tied to them? It's less of an optimized combat trinity and more of a aesthetic and role-in-the-fiction.

Originally in D&D, the original trifecta was Fighter, Magic-User, and Cleric. I don't think this really works for our purpose because too many archetypal characters are cut out (Dashing rogues, archers, dick-ass thieves, etc.) and it's too specific to it's setting fiction. Plus having the axis be Fighter (no magic) to Wizard (all the magic) and Cleric (half magic but a little fighting too) feels wrong to me; makes Cleric feel less like a distinct class and more of a multiclass option. Having just one of the primary archetypes be magical feels "right".

Briefly I'd like to touch on the oldschool "square" of Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Magic-User. I think this one is a bit better then the above Fighter/Cleric/Wizard system, but I still don't like it. Having 50% of the class choices have a magic archetype, even if the magic is very different, feels negative to me. We also get into the above video-gamey problem of Wizard stepping on the toes of the other roles, but that's a much bigger topic talked about to death. I think for a dungeoneering squad it fits well, since the Cleric kinda has a role as a healer/support class that the Wizard doesn't, but it doesn't have that same distinctness that the Fighter/Rogue/Wizard trifecta does. It's also much easier to imagine more classes building off that base formula. Fighter + Mage makes a spellblade, or warlock, or paladin or whatever is easy to understand. Thief + Mage makes a Bard or Shadowblade. That's cool. But if you have four, how is that supposed to work? Fighter + Cleric makes... Paladin? What's a Mage + Cleric? How do you divine up between these roles for potential secondary archetypes? Or what if you want to include a setting whose fictional world doesn't have the cosmology that supports a Cleric? I'm not saying you can't do it, I just don't like it.

This fantasy trinity is useful to act as a baseline for creative work. But it's not based on direct gameplay like the combat triangle is in our above example; it's more based on aesthetics and the roles within the fiction. In D&D or generic fantasy TTRPG adventures; what sort of trifecta would we use instead? 

Fighter, Rogue, Sage
My concept, which I have shilled endlessly on this blog, is basically to take the three core fictional archetypes above (Fighter, Rogue, and Mage) and twist them into roles fitting the core gameplay of a standard D&D-esque OSR dungeon-crawling adventure. Basically having each class specialize in one of the roles. I renamed the Magic-User to Sage, simply to denote the difference in their role, but aesthetically they are very similar (wise, read spellbooks, use a staff, limited armor and weapons, etc.). This keep most of the aesthetic of a Wizard but more as a support class. It's a concept I used to shill a lot over the years, but in recent times I have greatly softened on it. The main purpose of this though was to try and fit the Sage underneath one of the core pillars of OSR gameplay; which is Resource Management. Using this, each class has a role they specialize in doing to overcome the challenges of the game world.

Fighters specialize in combat and direct force.
Rogues specialize in (safely) exploring the dungeon environment & overcoming hazards.
Sages specialize in resource management.

These three obstacles; Combat, Exploration, and Resource management are the primary vectors of "gameplay" and the difficulty or challenges to overcome in the game world. I think these three classes fit onto these most neatly; the attempt to pair classes with their actual gameplay function similar to the Tank/DPS/Healer roles in a video game. But there's a small issue here. These three obstacles are not the same as the three pillars of D&D. They don't encompass the entire game. The (official?) Three pillars I am referring to are the pillars of Combat, Exploration, and Social Interaction. One issue I have with this definition is, while the pillar of Social Interaction is certainly huge in the TTRPG game space, it's usually the most "freeform" part of the entire game. It's certainly an important aspect, but it could be regulated to a background element, or even roped in to the "Exploration" part of the game. For example, the pillars don't dictate that worldbuilding, lore, or environmental interaction is its own pillar, but these are background elements that determine what is going on just as much as character interaction. I don't disagree with it, but i find it strange that Resource Management isn't included, when it's so core to even modern D&D's game design, much less OSR style stuff.

With that said, if you want to continue our above design of making classes specialize in one of the "pillars" of the game; how can you do that for Social Interaction? If you want to say the Fighter & Rogue specialize in the combat and exploration part of the game; who is the social interaction master? The wizard is one option, as Wizards often have the tools required to interact socially both with friendly NPCs and monsters (Charm, comprehend languages, etc.) but that's usually not their explicit role in a party AND it also flies against the fiction, where Wizards are often less Charismatic then other classes since Charisma isn't an important stat. So if not Wizards; or if we include Wizards in our above schema, what roles can we create that exemplify social interaction?

For one, I don't think social interaction can be gamified as easily as other systems. You could make it into a minigame where players can't choose directly what they say; in the same way you can't arbitrarily decide if your attack hits or misses; or the much discussed "social combat system". As such, you can't choose to say a smart thing in a situation when trying to convince something of something. This is often rolled into Speechchecks or the Charisma modifier, but I never liked this solution as similar to Perception rolls you take the control out of the hands of the player. It'd be like forcing players to make an Intelligence check or roll a "Tactics" skill to make a good battle plan before a fight; it's just not something that is done.

(However I do like thinking about it; like imaginable an alternate universe where D&D never had a dedicated combat system and so it's as freeform as Speechcraft is, but diplomacy is so important they focused the majority of the game's mechanics around it.) 

Courtier class from Fantasycraft

So how would this social interaction specialist look? Would they have daily powers, or enhanced reaction checks? Similar to stealth (which is already a big problem), the binary success or failure states of a reaction check is kinda difficult to base a class around. Fighters get lots of chances for their benefits (high health, high chance to hit, etc.) to shine through even with randomness, Wizards get their spells, but Roguish or skill characters kinda just have to suck it up if they make a bad roll. Even if they're bad at it, they still have to be the one to do the action. This is a greater problem in TTRPGs over the concept of the "face" character doing all the interaction (always the one with the highest Charisma score) as it's not a real tactical or game play-inspired choice. Making this a class would only solidify this role even more. Second, I have a small pet peeve around making classes where you only need one. Having more Fighters is always good, having more Magic-Users or Clerics is always good, since that means more spells, but usually you don't really need more then one Thief. Having maybe two as a backup in case the first one dies might be good, and maybe more could be added if the game featured a lot of specific-skills where each individual rogue could specialize in different things so you can justify having more then one, but there is just less inherent usefulness to having multiple. The social interaction guy would be even worse for this because, presumably, you'd always have him be the "party face" and having more then one besides a backup is pointless.

Secondly; any rule you add to restrict social interaction is another rule that restricts player creativity and the "gameplay" of the game. Even if you're "allowed" to technically bribe people, your social expert getting a +2 bonus or letting the money be treated as 50% higher in amount for the purposes of bribing officials equal to their yearly salaries for a small benefit or whatever will force players to use this to their advantage, because otherwise it would not be optimal play. (Side note: Reading the Courtier description back does give me an idea for its secondary usefulness as a healer/support role if you use a abstracted HP or grit system, like Goblin Punch's recent Spirit post. But is this just a reskinned Cleric for your city-crawling campaign? Yikes.) Being able to force people to be your friend or hear you out once per day or w/e is interesting but it's a daily power; a forced gamification of a system that should be a part of the main game. The exception of course being supernatural or mystic powers; but still this is less interesting then just having it be default. The other more obvious rule restriction on social interaction is languages and this, fair enough, would give the class a useful benefit and/or give a reason to bring multiple. So you could have one who speaks Bugbear and one who speaks Gnollish or whatever. The issue with this is it's a very binary, kinda boring system. You either know it or you don't, and shutting off social interaction entirely unless you bring the specific key skill needed is a type of encounter design that I don't think is very popular. If you have a hint that there could be Frost Giants in your adventure early on and people decide to learn Giantish then that's interesting enough; but it's more something a character would want to learn on their own and not as interesting as a class feature.

The third and final primary issue with the social-specialist class is a matter of theme. There are a lot of Charismatic characters in fantasy and fiction, but it isn't really an "archetype" the way a Fighter or Mage is. The charismatic, attractive lead is a narrative archetype, but isn't really their "class". Sometimes the pretty face of the party who talks everyone out of trouble is the dashing rogue, or the cunning Wizard, or the damsel in distress. Having a game world you're using in an attempt to emulate myth, legends, and fun fantasy adventures and 1/4th of all adventurers are some courtesan or merchant class would take me out of it a bit; even though I think these are the best examples of roles you could make into this social specialist class. Bards? Maybe, but specific. Merchants or Courtiers? Very tied to social class and often NPCs.

But what if I told you there already was a social specialist in D&D-esque adventure games? And I don't mean player role or the DM's favorite, I mean an actual mechanically backed class. This is probably of no surprise to you, but... it's just the Rogue.

Even if we ignore later D&D skill rank systems in which Rogues tend to get the most points, Rogues have a lot of benefits that give them a social advantage. Being able to hide away out of sight, they can kinda avoid monster encounters; which means they can avoid social interactions they aren't well-prepared for. Being able to climb and sneak around means they're more likely to be able to interact with people out of the way; like the rare friendly monster, a captured prisoner without the guards knowing, or first contact with talking magic items. AD&D also has thieves cant, which while a setting-specific inclusion, is something that would theoretically make a Rogues/Thief just so slightly better at social interaction then other classes; even the Name-Level benefit of a thief in getting to run a thieves guild or a gang of scoundrels is very a "urban" type of reward and likely is set up at an important town with lots of trade and important NPCs, as opposed to the more utilitarian Fighter fortress or Magic-User's reclusive wizard tower and laboratory.

I always wondered what Class benefited the most from Charisma. Obviously having more hirelings (and starting gold) is useful for everyone, but who actually benefits the most from it? I honestly still think it's the Rogue. You could think of Charisma as a sort of "Stealth Defense" score; since it's highly likely that if you get caught sneaking somewhere they'll be some explaining to do; this also allows me to pair off the base attributes to the three class archetypes in a way that tickles me. Fighters like Strength and Constitution, Wizards or Sages like Intelligence and Wisdom, and the Rogues like Dexterity and Charisma. That way, in the same way Fighters can be more hit-y or tank-y, and Wizards can be smart or wise, Rogues can kinda lean towards being dashing or sneaky. Instead of a 4th archetypal role, we expand one of the existing ones and fatten up our trifecta.

Alternates to Hit/Miss Defense for Dex-Based Characters in RPGs

Path of Exile does it, Diablo 2 does it, Torchlight does it, Last Epoch does it, Titan Quest does it, Grim Dawn doesn't do it but kinda but that's game weird so who cares. Basically; these games have miss/hit chances when you attack enemies and when enemies attack you. (And also Morrowind and pretty much all CRPGs and every roleplaying game which shares its DNA with the you-know-what dragon game.)

Characters with a lot of Dexterity; Rogues, Archers, Amazons, Tricksters, Assassins, and so on tend to primarily build their PASSIVE defense around increasing the chance to avoid hits. This makes sense both in universe (dodging attacks meaning you don't take any damage at all instead of just reducing them the way a heavily armored warrior might endure enemy attacks) and also acts as a mechanically different form of defense then simple damage mitigation in the form of armor. But there's a few issues with it. Mechanically, this defensive type is inherently less reliable then the other types as it relies on randomness. On top of this, other base systems heavily skew this system to being either overpowered or very weak, such as a minimum hit chance percentage. In a properly balanced action game this may not be an issue, but in your typical ARPG with a huge amount of character build, gear, enemy, and encounter variance this quickly falls apart. While running into a monster with a "attacks always hit" modifier should be scary for a Dex character regardless under this system; it uniquely screws over this character worse then a "purges your defensive auras" monster or a "penetrates your armor" monster since rarely do these characters have a secondary form of defense and there tends to be less secondary forms of mitigation to offset this. This makes the game for these characters much more like rocket-tag; you either kill everything in one hit or they kill you in one hit with no inbetween.

This contrasts to the other characters with their own stats and defensive schemes. In PoE, which is the one I'm most referencing in and building from; Strength based characters use Armor which reduce incoming damage by a percentage, Dexterity uses our Evasion rating described above, and Intelligence has energy shield, which simply acts as a second health bar that recharges quickly when not in combat. Hybrid classes that mix two primary attributes use both of their attribute's defenses but to a lesser extent then a pure class. ie; Strength/Dex equipment grants Armor and Evasion but less then a pure Armor value then a pure Str piece of equipment would in that slot. 

Side note: While writing this post I had a sudden sense of Deja Vu and then I remember I did write this exact same thing before. This really is the autistic hyper-fixation blog. Doesn't matter, I have new ideas to add to the pile. I won't go into detail about high Evasion characters should have it easier in dodge enemy attacks though since I covered it there and I still think it's a decent mechanical idea- for video games, of course. While I cover a lot of tabletop stuff this mechanics heavy stuff isn't as viable at the table in my opinion.

While mechanically making Dex-based evasion mechanics more interesting is the goal, passive defense is inevitable in this genre and also important for the stat and character building side. How do we make this system more interesting while keeping its theme and making it distinct from the other forms of defense, like Health tanking, armor, block, or magical shields?

Definition of Terms- Accuracy Ladder
In most games with these systems, attacks either miss or hit in a very binary system. It has its roots in tabletop gaming; which is represented on a d20 attack roll. Crits are usually a secondary calculation with its own statistic; though sometimes it can be a factor. Roughly you can think of it like a ladder of different outcomes based on the roll and possible results.

(Critical Fail -------- Miss ---- Hit -------- Critical Success)

Increasing your To-Hit, Attack, or Accuracy rating essentially weighs this table towards successful hits, where as increasing your Defense weighs enemy attacks towards missing. I should also mention in this example, "Critical Hit/Fail" doesn't necessarily mean it's enhanced in any way; just that it's the guaranteed hit or miss hard boiled into the system. Path of Exile in particular engages towards this basic system more, since crits require a "confirmation" hit roll behind the scenes to activate. This means having high Dexterity & Evasion makes crits harder to land on you (Defensive) and having high accuracy and crit chance makes your attacks hit more and are more likely to crit (Offensive). However, this basic ladder concept can be applied to more then a binary hit/miss system. A good example of this, and the exact mechanic that inspired this post, is the Pillars of Eternity accuracy vs defense ladder or Attack Resolution system.

(Miss - Graze - Hit - Critical Hit)

In Pillars; a Graze means an attack or spell deals -50% damage or has -50% reduced duration, and the opposite applies to a critical hit. This heavily incentivizes Accuracy as something to build for any character, including spellcasters. Narratively this makes sense; highly agile characters dodging attacks and magic spells at close range so they are only grazed by them and are less phased by them as a result. But having a form of mitigation that reduces the incoming negative effects is a bit of a problem for our schema; as this is very similar to what our potential concept of Armor (strength) characters already do. At this point if included in the game; the difference between a chance to negate 50% damage or having a set amount of damage reduction becomes a math puzzle and is far less interesting to me then three complete, different defensive mechanics. It's still a useful starting point for our ideas.

As you can see, this small addition of mechanical depth can change a lot about the binary pass-fail system. But what should we actually do with it?

Alternate Concept #0- Fumbles & Counterblows
Whenever you are attacked, the enemy has a chance to hit based on your dexterity score and evasion. Very high difference of scores unlock the worst result, in which case the enemy fumbles their attack.

(Fumble - Miss ------ Hit ------ Critical hit) 

Whenever an enemy fumbles an attack against the player character; they not only miss but also slow down considerably, and become vulnerable to a counter-attack. The next time the player hits the enemy within a short window they take increased damage. Ideally, this would also be animated and shown in the game, either with a whiff or stumble animation, to further sell the illusion the player-character dodged or tricked the enemy so much they lose their balance and open them up to a counter.

This concept allows for more depth and increased reward for Evasion-based builds. It also indirectly helps with avoiding damage by increasing damage output; you can kill enemies quicker to avoid them hitting you again. This concept also fits with the general theme of Dex-based character fantasies; duelists or rogues striking enemies down in a glass-cannon playstyle. However, this doesn't actually change the core mechanic being chance-based. There are other mechanics that could make it deterministic, such as the first enemy attack each enemy makes against you always misses or fumbles with an increased chance to fumble; not to mention abilities or skills that can force an enemy fumble/stun animation and so on.

The other issue with the fumble mechanic is that it gives the player-character a special mechanic or advantage the enemy doesn't have (or if you did implement it the other way, attacking certain enemies would be suicidal or just really annoying to deal with; much in the way enemies with really high evasion already are). This increases the feeling of disparity between the player and monsters in the game; a nice thing about the Hit/Miss/Crit scale concept is that the player and enemies are essentially playing by similar rules, making it a sliding scale of combat. But this isn't universally true and lots of games already don't really have enemies with random chance to crit on attack; so thinking of a fumble just as a "defensive crit" in the context of the miss/hit random chance system it's more reasonable to think only players get access to it. Obviously once again this is only counting the passive defense aspect of the game; special enemy attacks could always make a player fumble or enemies could enter a guarded stance which automatically parry a player attack is a given as a possible mechanic to spice up the combat.

Alternate Concept #1- Active Defense Enhancement
More detailed in the other rant post; essentially allowing Dexterity focused characters more mobility & active ability to dodge attacks or telegraphed AoE zones of damage is another form of damage mitigation that is unique and separate from other forms of damage reduction. However the issue with this is the implementation. If every point of Dexterity just gave you +1% faster move speed and you could use that to dodge attacks; it would quickly be totally out of control with the character either zipping around the map so fast or every other type of character being almost unplayable in terms of speed. But you can't make the investment too small; if a max level Archer or Rogue is only 10% faster then everyone else and that's all the benefit you got from Dexterity then it would feel like a massive investment for just a chance to dodge enemies more often. Of course, given how insanely powerful movement skills seem to be in every game, maybe it'd be a fair trade off, but for average players I think it'd feel weird. It also has to do with scaling and impact; for an entire game's worth of content, a system like this would only be able to increase whatever movement speed or animation speed by a tiny fraction of fraction; meaning your gear upgrades would do almost nothing as you move through the game. For standard Accuracy/Defense rating however it works well since these values can scale off each other; so small dex/evasion/attack bonuses early in Act 1 can feel impactful while still needing constant upgrades throughout the game. If these stats were just "+X% chance to dodge all attacks" they'd need to be highly constrained or limited by certain hard caps or else you'd literally be increasing your modifiers by 1% per item swap throughout the campaign by the end or can't even get this gear until way later. There's a reason why games don't really set these as passive stats you can just grind for with level.

Second? This isn't really what we're talking about. This is kinda supposed to be... passive mitigation, right? Like armor, shields, stuff like that? Plus rarely is movement speed or mobility tied to a single stat like this; it tends to be a part of an overarching character design and part of the "power budget" of a character. Like Archers already tend to have moves that either keep enemies at distance or let them get back, and being ranged means they naturally have to be weaker in melee to make them not just straight better then a melee character.

One semi-simple solution is to have this archetype have multiple levers. Perhaps every point of Dexterity does increase your movement speed, but only when using the rush skill or dodge skill every character, has, giving a slight advantage (like PoE's dodge roll), that way Dex characters aren't literally able to just freely avoid every single slow predictable enemy attack. But this is just one mechanic; you can also stack evasion to increase your block/stun recovery time, making you less likely to get stunlocked. While this mechanic is usually thematically reserved for warriors, having it for agility-type characters also makes sense. Then on top of that; you have resistance to status effects, but especially slows. ARPGs seem very hesitant to actually put slows on the characters unless from very specific enemies (curses) or elemental types that you're meant to protect yourself against (cold dmg). As such, in this hypothetical scenario Dexterity could do a little bit of all of these. Increasing your resistance to slows, decreasing the size of enemy slam attacks or reducing the amount of damage you take from them (treating you as farther from "the center" for damage calculation), increasing your general action, attack, move, and stun recovery speed; and maybe enhancing your other movement based skills like dodge rolls, sprints, dashes, and so on. Tying this all to one stat or ability score is probably not ideal for game progression but might be interesting from a design perspective. And ALL of this, just to mechanically equal a passive chance to avoid attacks because I don't like the RNG engine. Yikes.

Alternate Concept #2- Damage Threshold
The higher your "Defense" or "Evasion" rating is, you avoid all attacks that deal damage underneath that value. Any attack that does over that amount of damage, you take the full amount of damage. Effectively means weak attacks from minions or spam spells won't do anything to you and you just dodge them, but big powerful attacks from stronger monsters or AoE damage spells and slams still hurt you. Extremely simple.

Unfortunately, I don't see this one really working in practice. These types of games tend to have random damage numbers or alternate damage types (elements, magic v physical, pierce that ignores armor, etc.) and would come out to be very difficult to predict how well defended you really are. While slightly less random then Evasion rating, it would still feel very "random" in that you suddenly take big hits from enemies if enemies have randomized damage enough to slip past your DT. Secondly, becomes a huge balancing nightmare as if you can raise your DT too high enemies will just literally not be able to do anything to you, or you can still take one shots when enemies stack multiple modifiers or amplify damage curses or what have you. However, I do think it thematically fits these types of characters well; and fits with the theme of scoundrels, bards, and assassins being cocky and untouchable until they just get slapped for a million damage out of nowhere causing sudden panic and being less reliable or as tanky as an armor user who presumably has more normal damage mitigation. The argument could also be made that this actually fits armor thematically better; so perhaps switching roles (evasion reduces damage by a percent, armor has a DT value) might fit these defense classes more. Though maybe in a perfect world, PoE style the class that specializes in the Damage-Threshold-Evasion would actually be the Duelist or Str/Dex hybrid; but this category has gone on far enough.

While we're treating this damage type as an absolute value, it also doesn't have to be and could be roped in with another defensive layer or schema. Like the accuracy ladder from before;

(Miss/Bonus DT --- Hit v Damage Threshold --- Hit v Damage Reduction --- Pierce)

Your absolute threshold only applies to "good" defense rolls vs enemy attacks (equivalent to a accuracy/evasion miss), where as a smaller Damage Threshold is applied to normal attacks that "hit" you successfully or instead just reduce the damage by that flat amount (maybe these could be swapped effects?) Finally, the equivalent of an enemy crit with this system would just deal full damage regardless of how large your threshold is. However writing this out, I'm basically now realizing this is basically what hit chance vs evasion is but the "damage threshold" is just the defense vs attack rating lmao. All in all I don't like this one; the absolute nature of it means that partial investment is almost useless you make even super late game enemies have very weak attacks that can still fit under a character's normal damage threshold that doesn't specialize in evasion, and it doesn't stop the pass/fail nature of random hit chance just offloads it to a slightly more predictable outcome just based on how strong an enemy is or whatever. Still, I have to include it in this list.

Alternate Concept #3- Potential Damage & The Vulnerable State
Instead of taking the damage directly, you receive "potential" damage. This could still be tied into a Dexterity system, like a percentage of the damage you take becomes potential damage or a certain type of hit you can take (between a miss/hit/crit etc.) deals a portion of the damage immediately and the rest is deferred in this way. Think of this as a secondary form of delaying damage but instead of being over time and guaranteed its a big lump of damage you could take at some point in the future.

While this sounds a little strange at first given the fiction of the game I think it fits pretty well. It contextualizes the combat system as being slightly more story based or requiring suspension of disbelief as when the skeleton hits your character you don't actually take the damage from the hit, but instead you are put slightly off balance, or reeling, or being pushed back and starting to feel doubt essentially, to the point that the next hit may be the lethal one that ends your adventure. I also think this well fits the leather clad "dex fighter", archer, rogue, or other similar archetypes often associated with this defensive stat.

There are then a few possibilities on when this potential/stored damage can actually hit you then. Without a reliable means for this type of damage to actually hurt you, it'd essentially then be no different from damage reduction. I actually have a really fun idea on how to represent this too given the genre staples; represent it as a crack in your character's life orb that slowly creeps towards the top as you have more and more of this "stored" damage. When the amount of potential damage is equal to or greater then your life total; you enter a "vulnerable" state, where the next solid attack that hits you will kill you instantly (because you take all the potential damage at once). Of course if this could be any random generic skeleton sword slash attack it would be no different then eating a high damage crit with a chance-based dodge rating; which is why instead I would have it so regular monster attacks become potential with Dexterity or evasion scaling, but area of effect or dodgeable spell attacks can pop your potential damage. As an addition visual indicator, a DbD Terror Radius like heartbeat appears in the center of your character with a loud heartbeat sound, which acts as a useful indicator you need to back off an use a recovery ability or wait for your potential or stored damage to disappear.

Thematically, I like this potential form of damage a lot. It gives a more active form of defense and also fits with the general aesthetic of "Dex based" characters; like thieves or rogues who run in an bite off more then they can chew, and will suddenly get put in their place if they try to get too fancy with it. And it also allows you to stay in combat longer if you take the risk; perfect gimmick for a arrogant rogue type character like PoE's Shadow. I also think, contrary to first opinion, that it may actually be fine to have this NOT as a character-specific passive ability or active "smoke bomb disappear risky ninja defense skill", but as a game-wide mechanic. Why? Because characters who aren't stacking evasion/dex won't have this vulnerable state happen that often and will more likely die from normal damage; but when it rarely does happen it'd make for an interesting gameplay moment of the Warrior going into their defensive block stance to avoid taking a critical strike or a Sorcerer quickly teleporting away or using their bubble shield to avoid getting one-shot through their defenses. Certain enemies could also specialize in this kind of damage; like if you walk through spider webs or let invisible rogue enemies stay behind you too long and now have to deal with them over any other enemies to avoid getting one-shot. 

The issue with this concept is twofold though; firstly being something that may be useless for characters who don't build into it (if too low-Dex can't turn damage into potential damage then splashing a little evasion doesn't do anything for you; where as in PoE even a small amount of evasion will reduce some of the damage you take sometimes at least), or even worse it could actually be MORE beneficial for character who don't specialize in it then those who do. Like imagine if a heavily armored warrior gets enough evasion that 50% of the damage they take is deferred as potential damage; but they don't convert enough that they ever reach the "vulnerable state", meaning they essentially get a form of damage mitigation better then the evasion character who might reach multiple "vulnerable" points during a single combat encounter with a boss and therefore has more chances to actually die in the fight. Part of avoiding this is just how the vulnerability state is mechanically implemented; for example I'd have the vulnerability state only activate when you mitigate a hit large enough to actually chunk your hit points, which causes the heartbeat visual and audio warning, which then beats faster and louder if it grows to be capable of killing you in a single hit. So midway through a fight you might mitigate enough that a single hit will put you at half HP, which you have to worry about a bit, but full "balls to the wall one hit will kill you" moments are more rare and not something you get often with this form of damage resistance. The second problem I have with it, which is more nitpicky, is that this just the PoE Energy Shield in reverse. Instead of getting out of combat to recharge your temporary defensive shield, you are getting out of combat to avoid a large hit, but if this potential damage is deferred after a few seconds of safety then it's exactly the same as an ES build just more complex and harder to make a build around imo. With all this in mind; I'd keep this as a special character power or rare mechanic for certain mobs; like rare mobs with a "Heartseeker" modifier that lets them charge up a lethal crit on you if you fight them for a long time, or a method for an lifestealing vampire dexterity character to avoid death by entering a vulnerable state for 3 seconds whenever they reach 1 HP IF they can manage to lifeleech all their health back or w/e within the time limit. But this leads perfectly into the last concept...

Alternate Concept #4- Damage Deferral
The simplest, and by far my favorite of all alternate defensive stats for Hit/Miss systems is simply damage deferral. You still take some or all of the damage from the attack, but instead of taking it all at once, you take the damage over time. At first glance, this may seem really bad. Why would anyone use this? You still have to take the damage, right? Yes, but the rate of taking the damage is reduced significantly, which means you don't have to take it all at once. Instead of dying to a single bit hit or rapid series of hits, your health drops but you now have a safety net of time to use to recover your hit points, complete the combat encounter, or both.

Most of these kinds of games have some form of healing; like potions, flasks, lifesteal on attacks, life gain on kill, and so on. With damage deferral, you can simultaneously survive hits while also undoing the damage of those attacks through healing. Most of the time there is also a base health regeneration rate, which already helps greatly reduce the amount of damage you're taking, but this fully depends on the interval of time. This would have to be adjusted for the speed of the game; with slower games naturally having slower damage deferral timers, and fast paced games having much shorter ones. While this depends immensely on the theme of the game; Dexterity characters often have a lifesteal or life-gain-on-kill focus, or a focus on alchemy and self-healing. Path of Exile's claw weapons, which are a Dex/Int hybrid weapon, have a base ability of restoring life or mana on hit. Already the ability to defer damage would go hand in hand with this archetype; but it's even better with the Armor/Evasion/Energy Shield scheme as you could essentially be taking damage to life while regenerating or blocking damage with energy shield acting as an extra barrier. Same as all games with healing; healing over time with a shield is doubly effective since you are essentially restoring the health and preventing further health damage with the ablative effect of a barrier or bonus HP or whatnot.

Of course, the exact amount of damage deferred and how/when it is applied is important. If evasion is a pure damage deferral tool; then all attacks would be damage over time which for whatever reason rubs me the wrong way. Instead you could use the accuracy ladder, but instead with damage being deferred or immediate being the outcomes instead of attack roll. For example, you could still have misses, but a very high evasion role could mean enemies hit you with a slower damage over time effect (100% of the damage taken over 12 seconds) where as a medium hit or lower evasion score results in taking half the damage now, and the other half over a shorter time period. (like 50% and the rest of the damage over 4 seconds). In this protocol the player is less actively managing the damage deferral in the shorter term, instead more relying on the life steal/regen/other damage mitigation effects to sustain them. You could also apply a secondary reduction of damage to just the overall amount as a new modifier to items, character skills, or to other abilities. Like "75% of the damage taken is taken over 4 seconds" with whatever is leftover just being lost, but this is starting to get back to the realm of pure mitigation and damage reduction, which is more armor's thing. I think having a character with just a flat amount of damage mitigation built in to their evasion mechanic is fine though, since it helps a lower HP/armor character survive who doesn't have those sorts of magical/ranged defenses Wizards might get in our potential game.

(Miss - Graze (100% deferred) - Glance (50% deferred) - Hit - Critical)

I also believe this concept really thematic fits the Dexterity characters and their style of defense; they "dodge" attacks to make themselves bleed or avoid the damage for a short time, but still have to mitigate the damage as a high risk/reward kind of defensive mechanic, and adds a decent amount of active management to the system. If you see your life draining from hits, drink a health potion or use your defensive options; perhaps even moves that delay the damage even further, though once again this could be more of a character-building thing over an active part of the combat system.

However there are a few negatives to it. Firstly; it's much harder to tell exactly how dangerous or to differentiate monster types if they're all dealing delayed and mitigated damage. For example, in an RPG where you can go to high level areas early, your first warning sign to leave is usually coming up to an enemy that deals half your life in a single hit or something similar. Even if you manage to defeat the opponent or run away, this subtly tells the player they need to improve their gear or level up more. While rapidly losing all your health from a powerful enemy attack is similar, I don't think it has quite that punch. In the same vein, running into a pack of enemies in Diablo 2 and being chain smacked by several powerful melee enemies reminds the player to keep their sorceress or whatever back and reinforces the combat style; where as an Evasion character might wade into big groups of enemies not realizing they're "playing it wrong" since they're mitigating the damage and not seeing the immediate effect of their actions. These are just gut reactions though, and I think players could learn to adapt to this new system. Along with this; I do think a game where almost every enemy deals damage over time could be really annoying just from a player perspective, but hopefully this would mostly only matter to our evasion/dex player and they'd see it as a positive and a result of their hard work building their character.

Secondly; what to do with lethal damage over time damage? This is trickier then it seems. I can easily see a situation where a player has frustration over running into monsters, killing them easily, but taking a lot of deferred damage and dying right after because they don't have the healing or lifesteal to sustain their build. Or even worse, standing there awkwardly watching their health tick to zero as they realize they have nothing in their inventory or try to rush to open a town portal scroll and go back to town before they die (this could also be extremely fun however).

If you do something like make healing more effective for "overflow" damage to your life total or make it so healing always ticks before damage (ie; you can't die from damage over time while you have a healing effect active) then it might be too easy to cheese. However I feel like this might be completely fine, since presumably players have limited healing resources. The second solution to this is to just make the damage from mitigated hits nonlethal; which means you can't actually die from pure deferred damage. Similar to poison in a lot of games; this means it just lowers your survivability but won't actually kill you. I also like this solution from a possible action game perspective, as this would also fit the character fantasy of high risk high reward Dexterity rogue archetype we like; but once again this might be too easy to cheese encounters by just getting really high evasion and disengaging from packs and waiting for your deferred damage to go away or returning to town after every fight for a heal; which is certainly not what is intended. Still, I think this solution is a really interesting way to represent a Dex-build evasion type character in a game that doesn't have to rely on a static hit/miss chance.