Makes Clowns a Race in your next Campaign

Original art @Ariel VH I think

There are a small set of character archetypes or "conditions" like vampirism or lycanthropy that can be attached to characters which keeps them human, but subtly different. Enough that they would still have "human" on their character sheet, but may have different abilities or a life that is significantly different from the other people in the same world. Much of these characters pathos comes from this separation they have with normal people; either a curse or blessing; and much time and energy is spent to examine them from their more human side or how they were before their change.

But you ever notice how nobody does this for clowns?

Superheros have alter-egos and their secret, civilian identities. Werewolves have their human form and the beast which they must keep in check. But clowns are just clowns. You notice how rarely we see clowns in media not in costume? We rarely examine their lives outside of when they are a clown. Even serious, scary clowns are only scary and serious because they are clowns. The only exceptions to this is the infamous Pagliacci and I guess Joker from Joker but not the Batman Joker who is a clown even in his off-time, where as Batman becomes Bruce Wayne. Just say it out loud to see what I mean; you can say Bob is a Human Fighter and he also got turned into a vampire. This is a sensible character concept. But if you say "Bob is a human fighter and he dressed like a clown" it wouldn't sound right. "Bob is a clown fighter" sounds better. Ergo, Clowns are a race.

Art @Poco

They Come From Clowntown
Clowns come from the big circus. Maybe it's a special flying city (or better, a city on stilts) where it's always in the carnival season. Maybe it's from the magical traveling circus where orphaned children end up, never to be seen again as they join the performers as new clowns. Maybe they're fully formed from the dreams and nightmares of the people of other races, which is why clowns sometimes have pointed ears or short and fat like a dwarf. Maybe they are just made normally with some very behind-closed-doors clown sex. Regardless, clowns live separate from the other races in the world. Their existence is magical in nature, as they don't really eat food the way other races do, instead eating emotions and attention. They don't worship the normal Gods; they worship the Fake God. It's not a false God, it's very real, it's just simply not a very serious one.

Clowns are roughly divided into two categories or subraces. Light and Dark.

Light Clowns are all about laughter, jokes, and traditional gags and pranks. They're very kindhearted and are often the butt of the joke. They fill a very supportive role both in comedy and in a party dynamic.

Dark Clowns are a bit edgy. They like darker humor, schadenfreude, and getting the last laugh. They are much more independent of the clowning types are more likely to take the lead from others instead of helping.

In traditional clowning, you could think of a Light clown as being the Auguste and the Dark Clown as more of the Whiteface clown; but the types are somewhat independent from alignment or role in comedy. Just think of the Light Clown as being the traditional clown and the Dark Clown as more of a jester or "badass" clown. Dropsy is a Light Clown, Shaco is a Dark Clown. Ronald McDonald is a Light Clown, Jester from Gauntlet or Darkest Dungeon and all horror clowns are basically all Dark Clowns. The girl clown from trying to get it ate? 100% Dark Clown.

While the Light Clown & Dark Clown dichotomy is very important in their society, it isn't necessarily an inborn trait. Clowns can switch between being light or dark, with some even getting stuck in the middle as a Mime. Mimes are like neutral alignment clowns but they also literally can't talk until they "find their voice" again. Most people assume it's a new joke when the clown in the party starts doing charades and dropping the colors from their outfit but no they're actually having an existential crisis until they figure out if they're gonna go Light side or Dark side again.

Clowns mostly stay in the circus or dream realm. This is where their food is most abundant, and where they can get up to their antics with less resistance from the other races. But sometimes, clowns are ejected from the big top and forced to go out into the world. Usually this is because they're not funny (if you never found clowns funny, it's because the funny ones don't get banished), but sometimes it's because they seek ancient knowledge; like the punchline to a forgotten ancestral joke or the recipe to the sherbet cream pie; which leaves a perfect rainbow of colors on people splatted in the face by it instead of the plain white that clownkind has settled for in the many centuries since this knowledge was lost.

See the difference?

Playing as Clowns
Ability Scores- Increase either Dexterity or Charisma by +2
Size & Speed- Medium & As Human
Alignment- Can be Good or Evil, but almost always Chaotic.
Languages- Common, Gobbledygook (Used by clowns and lawyers exclusively)
Skill Proficiencies- Perform & Acrobatics
Abilities- All Clowns have a nigh-infinite number of tricks they can perform. These can effortlessly entertain children and the simple minded, and can also be used to trick people, but essentially work as the spell Prestidigitation. If it's for anything important, then they can do it three times per day.

Then, depending on the type of Clown, they get a second ability.

Light Clowns get the ability to Slapstick. Whenever they fail a skill check or take a tumble, they can reduce the amount of damage taken to one point of damage maximum. This can only be used for out of combat scenarios or relatively low-risk engagements, like getting hit over the head with a bottle in a bar fight. Alternatively, a Light Clown can willingly take an enemy's attack, automatically allowing the attack to succeed without a To-Hit roll, but reduces the damage taken as though every attack die rolled was a one. This is always accompanied by a Gag; like getting hit on the head with a hammer and the clown falls down with a clang, but reveals a small anvil hidden under their hat.

Dark Clowns get the ability of Prank. Whenever someone fails an attack roll or skill check nearby them, the Dark Clown can reveal it was a prank and they caused it; granting them advantage on their next attack against that target. For example, a goblin desperately tries to steal your lantern from your hip to put it out before their ambush but fails. The Dark Clown reveals a very long hankerchief chain tying it around their waist, then coils the cloth around both hands and starts choking the goblin out with the colorful garrote wire. If this rule is too unusable, then instead Dark Clowns can just use Perform rolls in place of Attack or Stealth rolls for sneak attacks.

Clowns naturally take up roles like Bards, Rogues, and Artificers. Few Gods tolerate Clown followers and worshippers, and the Fake God has very little interest in worship, and so few are Clerics or Paladins. Despite their love of physical comedy, they make absolutely terrible Monks.

Endless Summer

This concept is named after the final chapter of Rockstar's Bully, which is the freedom chapter with no story missions where the player is allowed to explore the entire world and complete all of the side content they didn't finish during the main campaign. But I first felt it strongest during the post-game of Neversoft's GUN for the PS2, which was coincidentally the first "Cowboy GTA" before Rockstar made Red Dead Redemption.

In GUN, you have a linear story and mission structure. The map is segmented into a few zones, with story-specific areas locked off or built into the overworld. Along with this, the game has a few limited sandbox zones, mostly in the generic western one-street town where the player can gain a wanted level, and then a very limited number of side activities like hunting rare animals or bounty hunting missions out in the wider world. I remember feeling that this world was very vast despite the technological restraints, and how realistic it all felt despite how quaint it looks today. But the purpose of this post is not nostalgia-bait.

Near the beginning of the game there is a mission where you are battling in a fort. I don't remember exactly who you're fighting or why, but you can go back here after progressing, even during the post-game. This area is separated from the "main" mostly desert western setting, being a more green forested area with waterfalls. I remember playing the game after beating it, and traveling back here on my horse. Running back through the fort, I was put on a very linear path, the same as you ran through in the story sections, and found the entire area was extremely closed in an simple, like a piece of the linear level structure placed into this open world. You were never really intended to come back here. Similarly dotted around the map were the rare animal locations and bounty missions, which once you collected them and the rewards you could revisit them and find them empty, with nothing there. There's even a mysterious spiritual indian cave not to far from the main town, which serves no purpose except in a single story cutscene, but you can freely travel there whenever you wish once you have the ability to move about in the open world.

The vibe this game put off was incredible to me. It was a very specific feeling; the world is alive, but not by much. The great beasts of the land were slayed, the great wilds already plundered and looted, the important characters fading away or disappeared after their story cutscenes wrote them out. You can still "play" in it, but the facade becomes obvious as the seams come loose. But it's important to remember that this is only because you've already completed the main quest. Before that point, as long as a quest marker or mission pops up on your compass, anything could happen, any new area could open up. But once the main story has completed and its emotional arc is concluded, you're left with a world that feels strangely empty and forlorn.

What if a fantasy world could end up in this state?

Endless Summer
The dark lord has been defeated. The evil cult has been thwarted from summoning their dark God, and the portal that could allow it to enter our world is shut for good. The corruption that plagued the minds of all sorcerers and magic users has been banished as the astral parasite was removed, and society is freed from their influence. The great emotional and dramatic arc of the world has been completed. But then... nothing happens.

People still go about their daily lives, but something is different. New spells and technologies stop being invented. Monsters become more and more rare. All of the great relics and items that could constitute a great quest have been found already, and no new ones are discovered. Time has not stopped, but the meaningful progression of time seemingly has. There may still be conflict over resources and races and between religious orders and factions, but they all seem trite and unimportant, just repeats of more significant conflicts in the past. It's like the world has run out of "content".

In a (not live service) video game, this happens because of the limitations of the developers and eventually the memory of the disc or cartridge or other hardware. There is only so much "game" they can make or want to make. But in a secondary fantasy world space, the events of the world that we invent (either as historical background lore or as a campaign to be played within) are diegetic; they come from cause-effect relationships in the world, exactly as the real world and the endless churning wheel of time. But that doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

Perhaps the Gods have gotten bored of their creation, and went off to astral realms or higher realities to abandon this one. Perhaps the great apocalypse the heroes stopped was supposed to have happened, the heroes were supposed to have failed. Now the great weave of fate has run out of thread, and a great vitality and potentiality to everything has been sapped from the world itself, invisibly, leaving the world the same size, the same depth, but there is simply less in it.

This concept is distinct from a fantasy world having an "Age of Sail" or "Magic Industrialization" moment, as these are a great change which may kill a bit of the magic or fill in the corners of the map, but still lead to great story opportunities or  uncovering many mysteries. The Endless Summer is a bit more of an anti-mystery, and anti-quest. There are no more quests. The world has history, but it's the end of history. It's like an aged MMO where you see a bunch of epic level adventurers running around in glowing magma-forged gear shining with exotic mounts crowding the main town doing the same daily quests. No new players are joining the game.

What is the eventual fate of such a world? I do not know. Maybe the elves and dwarves and orcs and humans who have made a truce with each other decide to defeat the dark lord of undeath decide to break the truce, but their heart just isn't in it, and the next year they reinstate it for lack of things to fight over. Maybe the old bickering blood-feud between two families comes to a standstill as whenever some obscure relative is killed of one family, a new indistinguishable one appears from some far off corner; like they're appearing out of nowhere to keep things the same. Farmers fields seem more and more stable each passing year, raids from goblins are less effective, and adventurers clearing out their caves find the exact same artifacts as the last group from last year. It's as though things grinding to a halt, and the invisible machinery behind the scenes has begun to break down. The most existential and deadly of all fates that can befall a world is this one, as any attempt to escape it or change the course is stopped with incredible inertia as people become totally set in their ways, uncaring, keeping the same problems and the same solutions, as if ontologically worn out and trapped in a diorama. Like a demiurge's creation sealed in a glass case and glued down to preserve it in this one state forever. The sun is still bright and the grass still sways and the crickets chirp and all is peaceful in the summer sun but the peaceful summer day never ends.

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.

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.

More Gemcraft Whining + The Problems with "Optimal" Choices in Games

So I wrote a bunch about my favorite tower defense game(s) ever in this previous blogpost, and in a very rare move for this blog I actually went back and edited it to add more of my thoughts to it, but I decided that STILL was not enough so here I am writing even more. This concept sort out branched out from me thinking of what I wanted out of my "dream" new Gemcraft game. Since the developer isn't working on the next one right now (which is fine by the way, after making and improving the same game for like 15 years you get a break, go off King), but after a lot of thought about it, I started to realize a few things, specifically about the colors of Gemcraft gems and limitations of a game.

Quick reminder; every color of Gem grants a special effect on a hit, like poison for green gems or slowing for blue gems. Gems in traps have great special but shit damage and range, where as towers have great range and damage but weaker specials. Mixing gem colors reduces their specials by a lot, but will slightly increase their base gems in dual and triple color gems.

This leads to a an interesting and (hopefully) strategically deep choice in the game. Do you want to run towers with weaker damage but better specials? Which specials? Or is the special so important you put in a trap? This already has a slight problem as there is almost no reason to put a dual or more color gem in a trap unless you can actually make it stronger with a buffing gem (Poolbound, Bloodhound) or make it hit multiple enemies (chain), but the core choice of what gems to use is part of the game and your strategy. I like this on the surface. But with more thought, a problem arises. Even if all gems are otherwise equal; There are just certain gems you're never going to put in towers and some you're never going to put in traps. Because they have different roles in the game, what types of gems are best for each are exclusive to each type. For example, putting an armor-shredding gem in a tower lets it remove a small amount of armor whenever it hits an enemy. Even if armor shredding was so important that it became a vital part of your strategy, why would you ever put it in a tower when you could put it in a trap and get the main value instead? Tower gems are things that support their function of damage with maybe a secondary effect. So crit gems, chain gems, maybe slow or poison and that's being generous along with the no-brainer gem colors that just make your gems "better" at everything. Meanwhile, gem effects that weaken monsters on a hit are just better to put in a trap, because they hit so much faster. Tower gems at least encourage you to mix and match colors for the dual or triple gem power bonus; so with no other important choices to make; I usually just defaulted to putting a Mana Gem as a tower gem component, since it will still generate a little bit of mana even when diluted since they attack so much. And this led to the real problem.

Engine Generation
In any tycoon, strategy, or game focused around resources or management; anything that generates more resources is always going to be the best strategy. This is totally fine in games designed around it, typically the idea is finding the best return on your investments or how to capitalize on them, but the problem is when they're provided as an alternate or "equal" choice to others.

Just think about it for a second. If you're playing an RPG and get the choice to take a reward from a quest and you can choose between a sword much better then your current one, a powerful and rare healing consumable, or an accessory that increases your experience gain by +5%, which one are you going to pick? Almost everyone is going to pick the experience booster. Not only because it's implied to last longer then the others, a temporary benefit as opposed to a permanent increase, but also because experience is going to be the engine driving the game and your progression forward. We can see this in almost every game. In 4x games, science tends to be King, and so the faction with the best science is almost always top of the tier list. In a fighting game, the character with the fastest attacks and best frame-data-advantage is going to be the best character, because they get the most "resources" in that style of game. Gemcraft exemplifies this problem even more because of how central mana is a resource; not just your method of crafting your defense but ALSO your health and ALSO your ability to invest in bombing enemy waves to get more XP and ALSO used as a panic button if things get too scary. It's the central resource of the game. The problem here is that a single gem color is by far and away SO much better then the other gems, so integral to the game's mechanics, that every single possible build and combination of strategies will feature them prominently. From beating a map normally to challenge modes to endless endurance waves to see how long you can last; all of them feature mana farming with orange gems as a core strategy. Using chain+mana+bloodhound for bonus to specials from hit can create an insanely powerful synergy that you place in traps near the start of each course, so every monster naturally gets hit by them, and you can build as many as you want. This not only trivializes campaign levels, but also lets you get to the highest scores of endurance and beat the hardest challenges as long as they're allowed within.

Do you see the issue with this?

I dislike games with false choices. Something obviously and miles above better then everything else doesn't lead to interesting and meaningful decisions in a game. TTRPG example? Oldschool Haste or Speed spells letting you get additional actions. So much stronger then any other choice, given the turn based nature of these types of games, that it becomes dumb NOT to use them. But I think the real issue with this is it creates a false dichotomy within the game itself, the player when playing, and the community around the game. The common argument of "if it's too strong just don't use it" doesn't really work, even for a single player game, because the game subconsciously or otherwise is DESIGNED with these strategies in mind. For Gemcraft in particular, the endgame super endurance waves are literally not feasible to beat without mana-farming, as monsters gain exponentially more hit points and armor to comparatively less and less mana farther on as the game goes. It is no longer just another tool in your toolbelt to decide how to built your defense, it is a mandatory part of every strategy that the other choices then take actual conscious thought. As such, it pains me to say that they won't be included in my much coveted Dream Gemcraft game, never to be described or quantified.

However, this isn't meant to be a total condemnation of the concept. Obviously, implementation matters more then inspiration; if the mana Gems had a cap (which older Gemcraft games had) or an extremely small return on investment, like it's only possible to get 10% return on a gem even after using it a hundred waves, then yes it would be much more "balanced", but would lean towards uselessness. Technically speaking there has to be some level where the effort and cost-basis is too much and a different effect would be better, it's just more of a mathematical effort then most people are willing to make. Finally; it should also be noted that no matter how well intentioned, balanced, or well-designed you make a game there will always be a "meta" or optimal strategy. That's just the result of human nature. I just find "economy engine building" type best strategies the most boring of all.

DBD's Game Design is pretty good actually + Mechanical "Breakpoints"

Art @BHVR Interactive

So I've been playing a lot of Dead by Daylight over the past few years. While not the sole reason this blog's been neglected and rotting away, it's definitely a factor. If you somehow have never heard of it, it's grindy game-as-a-job pay to win garbage, don't play it. But it is pretty fun.

One interesting thing about playing a game that's been around for such a long time, with so much exploration of its very rudimentary game mechanics, with such a large community and critical culture around its basal systems, is that you develop this sort of inbred and highly referential style of game design; where everything from character traits and personalities to tropes to supernatural powers are represented through a very strict set of game design principles and mechanics. In a sense, it's exactly the fucking same as D&D, but that's a topic for a whole different Vaguepost.

Sidenote: If you didn't get my rambling word salad above, what I mean is the game really hasn't changed in like 8 years despite having ten times the characters, perks, systems, etc. An example is the perk Self Preservation ; how do you represent a self-interested character who is willing to sacrifice others to get what they want or protect themselves? In some games this could be literally making them take a hit for you; but in DBD that would be absolute cancer. Instead? It hides your scratch marks, blood pools, and sounds of pain (ways you can be tracked) when one of your teammates takes a hit within a certain range (enforcing the flavor), meaning they are much more likely to continue to get attacked then you (appropriate benefit). It's thematically appropriate, but essentially a shrinking of all possible design space (or "story" if it was literature) to accommodate for the actual game being played.

Despite this grand diversity and development of mechanics; Dead by Daylight's core gameplay of a chase is extremely simple, and has essentially not changed in the majority of the game's lifespan. Basically; survivors who are healthy or at the start of the match make way less noise, and can be hit once to become injured. Once injured, they leave pools of blood and make more noise, and if hit again they will be downed and put into the dying state. While following the survivor, the Killer gains bloodlust that slowly makes them move faster. Survivors can avoid killers by using very obstacles in the map, like windows they jump through faster then Killers or dropping pallets that slow the Killers down as they break them. Once in the dying state, the Killer can hook the survivor which gets them closer to being sacrificed (killed), or they may be able to kill them themselves if a specific condition is met; but for the individual chase it is over. Obviously the fact that only one role can harm or kill the other, and the fact that role gains special powers and abilities to end the chase faster, means it is very asymmetrical and eventually all but the absolute best or luckiest survivors will go down. This seems unfair, but remember the game is asymmetrical and while one survivor is being chased, the others remaining can rescue one another, heal up, travel & explore the map, make progress on escaping, and so on.

What makes this interesting (and in my opinion crucial to the game's relevance and success in the genre since all other competitors have failed for one reason or another) is how binary and limiting this game design scheme seems at its surface. There isn't even a health bar or hit points like in other games. Hit once for injured, again for downed. This is a far cry from most multiplayer games; which tend to measure time to kill much faster and having more modifiers for weapon types, damage, abilities, etc. Fighting games grant a bar for damage that allows for small mistakes to build up via chip damage or comboing, Smash Bros has a percentage that increases knockback and vulnerability for a powerful finisher, PVP in an MMO would have a long time to kill based on various abilities, status effects, and split being single target unavoidable moves and area of effect damage that can be dodged, and so on. 

Even games with very lethal and realistic damage systems, like a Call of Duty or Counterstrike with rapid firing modern weapons, still grant the players hit points to allow them to take a certain amount of damage before dying. Effectively these games could be simplified to make it so simply getting shot with a bullet eliminates you, but slight differences in damage per time or locational damage to incentivize good aim and so forth creates its own environment for game design that's distinct.

check my fit

The (Other) Hit-Point Problem
One of the most common ways to create gameplay depth and player choice would be doing something that modifies your numerical abilities to a game. Something like attack and defense modifiers, or elemental resistances, and so on. This allows players to being to create playstyles or make decisions that increase the longevity and engagement of the game or system they are playing.

So imagine that Dead by Daylight was designed with Hit-Points in mind. The developers decide that the average Killer should knock survivors down in two hits, so they give survivors 100 Hit-Points, and have a Basic Attack do 50 damage. Simple. But now we have a problem. If the Killer wants to express themselves by increasing their damage, by perhaps finding a new piece of gear or equipping a perk or whatever, this has no actual effect on the gameplay, as it would still take two hits to down a survivor. Unless you manage to stack these upgrades until you literally got to double damage, in which case, the ability to single-hit a survivor would be such a significant change that the entire game would have to be built around this possibility. This also has a problem with stacking incomparable mechanics. 10% increased damage and 10% increased attack speed could be a comparable value in some games, but here it would be a stupid choice.

However, further problems arise in the fact that the reverse of this scenario is not true. If Survivors could say, equip armor that reduced damage slightly found around the map or spend just a few seconds healing themselves a little bit, even just by 1% would effectively mean you could get three health states instead of two, which is an incredibly powerful ability that is currently reserved in the game for very special circumstances. This leads to an inherent problem with game designing and balance; you can't have an equal option of 10% damage for Killer and 10% damage-reduction for Survivor because they wouldn't actually balance themselves out. If both players had it it would, but the core gameplay of DBD is very binary in this regard. This is why an MMO or tabletop game can have dumb shit like "+5% increased chance to hit" and it's meaningful, but in an action adventure or shooter game it really wouldn't make enough of a difference to be noticeable or important.

Of course, this is all predicated on the notion that DBD would ever have a Hit-Point system and no other changes where made along the way; which is clearly not the case. Maybe if the more damaged survivors got the slower they ran, or the more blood they left behind making them easier to track, or the weaker they are struggling while being carried the lower their Hit-Points went into the negatives when struck down, and so on could all increase the design-space of the concept. This isn't really a critique of a hypothetical system, it's to illustrate a concept behind game design and the natural consequences behind these systems that lead to specific design outcomes.

Dead by Daylight's Game Design is Pretty Good Actually
Despite this seeming limitation, Dead by Daylight has introduced a lot of mechanics that meaningfully play around this strict adherence to the chases. A few perks do obvious things, like granting speed boosts or the occasional Exposed status effect, letting survivors get knocked down in one hit; but this is always temporary or predicated on some kind of special perk or activation requirement to grant some kind of counterplay. However, what is more interesting is how many perks and powers play around this two-hits-to-down concept in meaningful ways.

The most obvious? In a 3d video game with a complex environment, the ability to damage survivors at range with a variety of different types of weapons or power is an obvious one. Because every Killer can attack up close with a basic attack, which are essentially unlimited and much harder to avoid by survivors most of the time; most powers result in different methods of ranged or area of effect attacks. Dead by Daylight has experimented with a lot of these, and almost all of them are just different enough to make them unique. You have a basic projectile that just does damage with limited ammo (Huntress), a faster projectile that pulls survivors close for an attack (Deathslinger), projectiles with a wind up and warning that hit through walls (Pyramid Head), a projectile that does no damage on its own but significantly slows survivors or gets you closer to them so they can be hit easier (Pinhead, Singularity, the new Houndmaster, etc.) All of these attacks essentially still require you to hit the survivor twice, but have a method to make it a little easier and faster and a way to prevent survivors from "looping" the Killer (running around obstacles in circles to make it take longer to down them).

While if every Killer was rigorously designed to require two hits to down a Survivor regardless of power or what they did, the design space is expanded to allow for more concepts. For instance; there are a few killers who can knock down survivors in one hit. They either have a chainsaw that needs to be revved up and aimed (and can be dodged), or the Killer requires a certain amount of set up, like stalking survivors from afar without chasing them or building up some kind of super meter. This concept creates a juicy design space where you are essentially off loading the time cost of an average chase with a much shorter chase IF You can land your skillshot or catch the survivor making a serious mistake. This concept also extends the opposite way; some Killers actually need three hits to down survivors with their powers, which would make them complete garbage in a vacuum, but the method or ability that allows them to do this carries with it another side effect, or depletes a valuable survivor resource. For example, instead of a straight shot projectile that deals a health state, the Unknown uses a grenade-launcher-spit-thing that causes survivors to become weakened. This status effect has no real effect on the survivors other then making them a little easier to see; but if they hit a weakened survivor with their explosion it will deal damage. So while it takes three hits to down survivors with this creature's power, the individual hits are easier to land, can hit multiple survivors at once, can shoot over walls or hit through thin obstacles, doesn't need to be reloaded at a locker and has a shorter cooldown, and so on.

While you can't make an attack do more damage or something, you can add other benefits. Most of the time when Killers get some kind of generic boost, it's usually increased lunge distance, which means they can hit around certain tiles or loops easier. Your cooldown after a successful attack can be reduced by several methods, and your attacks could inflict various status effects. The survivor side is the same; you can't easily make the survivors more stealthy beyond doing weird stuff like making them transparent or shrinking their model smaller, you can reduce their grunts of pain or scratch marks- which are methods of tracking. You could just increase survivor speed, but similar to the two-hit system having too many speed boosts or bonuses would ruin the predictability and importance of certain systems like looping and time-to-kill that's extremely important for this game. Some of the most broken times of this game were when survivors could stack various bonuses and buffs to become nearly uncatchable, and in a game where one killer has to chase down four survivors this quickly becomes a big problem, which is why such important things need to be carefully considered. The developers have been less and less willing to experiment with such things, granting smaller benefits like bonuses to non-objective actions like opening chests, totems, healing, and so forth instead of touching the much more central and precarious mechanics of the game. As a side note: I think tabletop games suffer from this issue too, not just in "D&Disms", but in the general sacred cows of the genre, like having set characters or a DM, mechanics based on pass-fail metrics, and so on.

Of course even with these tricks, eventually you begin to see overlaps and repeats. Killers are less individually unique in their abilities and powers and moreso the flavor and combination of abilities they have. After all, there is only so much you can do in a 3d environment built from the ground up to be static and with a very specific gameplay loop. But what can we learn from this?

Mechanical Breakpoints
Different games have different mechanical points or levers that cannot be adjusted or included in part of the game's milieu without it totally breaking the game. These are "breakpoints". The term is also interchangeable to a system or mechanic that meaningfully changes when enough pressure is applied to it; such as an RPG where you boost your damage to the point you can defeat an enemy in two hits instead of three. This became a bit messy halfway through writing it as trying to bridge these two concepts, but I think it'll work.

So what is a big mechanical breakpoint in a tabletop game? The examples given above do start it out. For example, an enemy monster with 7 Hit-Points automatically requires two 1d6 weapon hits to defeat regardless of how good your roll is. This could be considered a breakpoint, but given the number of damage, hit, morale rules, and so on I don't actually consider this the best example. Another could be spells; a spell effect as written either takes effect, or it doesn't, as per magic resistance rules. This one is tough because depending on the spell or magic effect, there is no easy way to "tone down" its effects to represent it being partially resisted or avoided and so on, and since published games tend to have one single rule/effect (since that's what the medium is primarily, the written word), it makes sense that the mechanics would be enforced to support what the text says since anything else requires too much arbitration on the part of the DM to do regularly.

But after much deliberation; do you know what the biggest mechanical breakpoint of a tabletop game actually is? It's actions, or turns. The action economy. This sounds a lot more obvious now that I'm typing it up, but being able to do more things in a round is a huge deal. If tabletop games were typically played between parties of 10 or more, like the oldest of oldschool gamers, then this would be less significant, but nowadays? It's a big deal. The typical part of 4-6 grant a huge importance to each turn. This is so important that even boss monsters, who are often outnumber by typical adventuring parties, are given special lair or legendary actions to try and even the playing field; even though the game designers can buff the stats of these monsters as much as they want. While this is a simplification, I think this is telling to the importance of turns.

The closest tabletop equivalent in video game format is usually the CRPG or, more accurately in my opinion, the humble JRPG. You can see this effect in action, as typically the player gets their biggest power spike when they get multiple party members. Even if the new party members are "bad", simply being there to hold aggro, use items, or allowing the party to retreat even after the "main" party members died is a huge advantage to avoiding a game over. In essence, it means that number of useful party actions is the biggest mechanical indicator of strength and balancing, as opposed to things like hit points or even chance of success. This is why tabletop is rife with +1 to Hit modifiers or health or whatnot are common, but there's basically never a "if you have enough Dexterity you get to make two actions a turn" sort of thing. It would be far and away better then any other choice.

So the question is; what do we do with this information? I think there are two ways to embrace this. Firstly, designing around this limitation. This is one of the reasons I never give players bonus attacks, even for fighters, except in very specific circumstances (you want to hit multiple enemies at once? there are rules for that already) I quite like the "one turn = one action" dichotomy. I think doing things like artificially shrinking the size of enemy forces and patrols to be closer to the party in size, or doing things like lumping multiple enemies together into a single mass (horde rules) is less disruptive then forcing party members to actually feel the sting of every single enemy attacking them while outnumbered. While this does mean your actions will be very specialized and specific, I think with the right mindset and design of the game it can be just as dramatic and fun. Like if you can only choose to attack, heal, or cast a spell; designing the game to make all of those equally big and impactful could be really fun. Just linear advancement of these abilities may seem boring, but another way to to design around this limitation is to rely on setups, bonuses, or other hand-in-hand modifiers.

In the above video game examples; a perk to break a pallet in DBD 10% faster is a nice thing to have. But that's because video games are real time, and saving a few portions of a second is noticeable and useful, but not gamebreaking on its own. Meanwhile, being able to do things faster in tabletop means either going first (it's an on or off, not granular) or making more actions overall (gamebreaking), so instead, we reverse this dichotomy. In our above theoretical tabletop system, we can't let ourselves do more actions, so we make our actions better. For example, instead of giving the fighter bonus attacks, we just make his attacks really strong, or pull a DCC and make the fighter do damage even on a miss. His action is still limited to one, but it always has some usefulness or is just far and away better then a normal action.

Another method is for setups between party members. You can't have two actions, but you can make somebody elses action way better. The problem with this is usually how its implemented. Wasting an action on buffing somebody else, or placing a minor debuff on an enemy, feels like a waste of your limited turn, so instead these need to be worked into the normal system. For example, if you attack an enemy, the next party member to attack that enemy gets a bonus to-hit based on your character's leadership skill or what not. Another idea is to tie multiple actions together. For example; a Cleric heals the party members with their spells, but gets to Bless them for free when they do so. This ability may come from a better spell or for free based on their level. While technically not giving them multiple actions, they can essentially accomplish multiple things at once but only in specific situations. While not at all equal to having multiple attacks, letting Fighter split up damage to multiple foes or get free autoattack counters on people just seems perfect for an "almost breaks the rules" sort of thing. If anybody should get it combat, it would be the Fighter.

The second way to embrace the action economy problem is to do away with it entirely. By reducing a single combat encounter or situation into one contested roll, or by using new forms of initiative or interaction. I've done this myself a few times; my current game features a low-magic dungeoneering party with many first time players. For their combat or trap encounters, I have them simply perform popcorn initiative, with whoever wishes to go may go and then the opponents get to go, or something happens in reaction to their action, and so on. This allows people to participate at their own pace, and doesn't force people to play if they don't want, but I make an effort to give everyone a chance to shine. This goes beyond the scope of this (very long) blogpost though; dealing with player psychology and table politics is already such a specific learned skill, your own experience would serve you better then anything I could recommend!

Tony Hawk should have been the last Smash-Pass Fighter and your KNOW I'm right

Alright we got Sora, which is like fine or whatever, but I feel like we had a big missed opportunity in Smash Ultimate. With the final roster all set in stone years ago; there isn't much to add or complain about. After all, it's unlikely a new Smash game is coming out any time soon and even if it does it likely won't have every character. Ultimate was the last hurrah, and the last time we experienced Sakurai time; the endless speculation and fan arguing. Smash was a once in a life time event, and it was fun while it lasted, but it's sadly time to move on.

But something I've thought about over the last few years? The final Smash Fighter really should have been Tony Hawk. No I'm not kidding. Really think about it for a minute.

Now of course, it's important to remember this is all pie in the sky stuff. Anyone can wish for any fighter for Smash, since it's a crossover game. But Smash fighters tend to have a few restrictions or areas of impact. So typically the game has to be at least somewhat famous, representative of a genre or series, or add to unique and interesting gameplay.

While being primarily based on Nintendo IPs, Smash is kind of meant to be a museum of gaming as a whole, at least in the time when it was created. You have the entire indie and PC gaming scene represented with Minecraft Steve, you have JRPGs like Square's FF and Dragonquest representation, you have casual gamers represented, and then you have crowd pleasers and fan favorites like Banjo and K Rool. But you know what Smash really doesn't have representation for? Sports Games. Sports games represent an absolutely massive portion of the gaming market. But just making a generic "football man" or something doesn't work, it needs to be a real person, even if it's one of Smash's rules not to include those. Besides; what of the gameplay implications? With Steve Smash proved they can take even the most boring and basic characters and give them a fun and interesting moveset; but how would you do that for a Sports character? Wii-Fit is kind of the closest, but I view that as a different genre, more of the casual gamer or "game as application" type then a Sports game. 

Tony Hawk straddles this line between Sports but also arcadey and action-oriented the best. You can instantly see his moveset potential. Using different tricks to slide around the stage, grinding on edges and hitting opponents with sick kickflips and the Superman. You could even see him having a unique mechanic like a combo meter that builds up and multiplies his damage the longer he goes without falling down or getting hit, stringing together multiple hits and good movement for insane damage potential.

Of course, practical concerns make this less likely. Activision apparently put Tony's name into insane licensing hell, hence the 'Tony Hawk's existential nightmare" meme. But if we're handwaving that concern, then what about the music? The Tony Hawk games are some of the most iconic music of the era, alt-rock, punk, grunge, and various other genres that make up that comfy 90s and 00s rebellious nostalgia. Just imagine beating people up in Smash Bros to Superman or Bus Driver's Imaginary Places. It doesn't really fit other music tracks in the game, which are strictly video gamey or more orchestral.

As for the Stage? It's gotta be New Jersey. You've got stage hazards with toxic dumps, halfpipes in drained swimming pools, and more. Maybe it could be a transforming map, with you switching between the New Jersey slums, to the inside of the Warehouse, to a professional skate park with lights and everything to fit the narrative of Tony Hawk's Underground, which is more what this representation is based on, though the entire series is rife with alt-colors and costumes for Tony Hawk as a character.

We could see the other skaters from around that time and the various stars of Jackass, another massive well of nostalgia for Smash fans, as alt-colors. Or just outfits inspired by them, similar to how other Smash Fighters have alts meant to show off other characters even if they can't have them in the game directly.

Finally; I want to talk about the WTF factor. Yeah, Tony would be a WTF pick, and I think one of Smash's rules is "no real world people" in the first place, but I think if we ignored that for this concept it would be the perfect capstone for Smash. Representing Sports games, bridging the gap to the real world, and finally being UNEXPECTED. One of my favorite Fighters that came with Smash ultimate was Piranha Plant, because nobody expected it. It's clear that things you don't expect are a huge part of Smash hype and the culture that came with the game, even if those days are long since passed. It's just a fantasy, but I love the idea. Maybe just because I hate Kingdom Hearts beyond belief. Anyway, Merry Christmas.