Trigger warning for autists. This thread may offend your need for structure.
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So there's these 'minigames' that really manage to convey a game situation in a visceral way for the players. They are limited in application, but what they do they do better than any dice probability could.
Dread uses Jenga to represent the tension curve which kills characters and players need steady hands under pressure to make it.
Earlier Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes was suggested as a bomb defusing mechanism.
The Good Friends Of Jackson Elias in their recent props episode suggested bullet casings as damage markers and a toy gun with limited charges as ammo counter. Maybe that isn't a minigame, but it does the same thing: convey game reality for the players to touch.
What are your thoughts on this?
>>45953137
It's a cool idea but needs to be carefully balanced. For example, having a player solve a little puzzle to represent their character solve an in-universe one may not make sense if the player is pretty smart but their character is a dull, uneducated brute. Or having the player perform a minigame that requires a steady hand needs to reflect the dexterity of their character in some way, too. etc.
>>45953342
That's the thing though. As long as it draws the player in it's still better than a realistic simulation.
Puzzles are a good point though. I'm usually not a fan, but if done right they can deliver exactly that immersion.
Don't make your players solve substitution cyphers. That's tedious. Unless you want the players to feel how tedious their character's job is for hours, don't.
You could give the players a ball to roll through a tilting maze to solve a dwarf puzzle that opens the ancient mountain home.
You can have the mad scientist's journal handout spell out the solution in the first letter of every paragraph.
But even a mere Vigenère code is too much to demand of players who don't happen to be total math geeks and enjoy such things.
>>45953137
>mechanics you can touch
Slapping dice like in Time Wizards
>>45953775
Can you elaborate?
I am aware of time wizards but have never read or played it. What are slapping dice?
>>45953802
Players, silly
>>45953802
One of the conflict resolution mechanisms involves slamming your hand onto as many pointy d4s as you can stomach.
>>45953842
OKAY GUISE,
LISTEN!
Everyone take off their shoes.
Okay, done? Now,
throw all your d4s on the floor while I walk to the door. Yes, spread them around a bit.
Now, the character of the last player to tag out at the door dies. *lights out
>>45953802
>I am aware of time wizards but have never read or played it
Neither has anyone else. It's an ebin meme some fag made up that a bunch of gullible nerds took to be an actual game.
>>45954037
Which is why I never read it.
>>45953137
Catacombs is a dungeon crawler where you flick disks to represent most combat actions. Your skill at flicking is pretty much your character's accuracy.
There's legit no reason you can't just slap a skill system (probably Risus) on that and call it a day.
>>45954108
Right. Because there's nothing to read. Because it's made up.
Glad we cleared that up, friendo.
>>45955042
inb4 someone posts a PDF
>>45955527
I didnt save it but I've read the first few pages of said pdf.
>>45956000
Well there are multiple ruleset pdfs on 1d4chan if you wanted to read the rest.
>>45953890
MY TIME HAS COME
AND SO HAVE I
>>45955042
why do you hate fun, anon?
You could use Jenga to resolve encounters. Ignore all dice and just draw blocks. You'd have to draw more than in Dread, that can take hours. But if everyone draws 4 or 5 blocks each round it should work pretty fast, Skill or combat values could let you draw less. When the tower falls it doesn't have to mean death, just that the character was overcome. What it will do is make the encounter one slope of increasing tension with an inevitable end. The players only compete over who loses.
>>45953137
I like using different mechanics for different classes/roles.
If you're the dex guy, no matter if you're trying to land an arrow in a weakspot, or slice with the right move so your katana can cut metal, you'll start a chronometer and try to stop it exactly at 45 seconds. The nearer you can the better.
Str may be rolled by opposed arm wrestling against the GM, but he must be stronger than all players so he can adjust strength according to the DC.
Int can be equations, and WIs can be... well, a zelda dungeon.
You can use anything, but i find it that players love it when you have some gizmo to solve rolls, like a chronometer, yoyo's, ping pong paddle and ball or a sandclock.
You also need to discuss if this is ok with the players, since it may hinder their ability to play a character archetype if they are bad at something.
tl;dl, if your players will accept it, go for it... but make sure no one feels left out
>>45955527
(*U*)b
god that emote looks stupid
>>45953137
Props are great. Things like Dread are interesting but can become frustrating.
If you want to resolve game mechanics based on player abilities, LARP.
Does Trail's sanity count?
>>45954037
My group did a one shot of it. Was quite fun. Had to go out to buy more d4s tho.
>>45953137
There's been talk about using one of these fortune teller thingies as a hacking mechanic before - I think the problem was that /po/ keeps the secrets of how to make these things carefully guard so no one could figure out whether you'd need different ones for different hacking checks or how to build table top crunch around them.
>>45954037
>being this new
Oh god no, one person laid out the ad hoc rules his group used for it in the original thread they made to talk about weird interstitial games they play when the "proper" games flag or hit a rest point, and then a bunch of elegan/tg/entlement compile it all into a pdf so it can be actually played as seen here: >>45957518
In fact I think it's on its second edition - I know there's still some crunchfags around slowly working at it and playtesting it to make it better
