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.
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