Mechanics that RPGs don't use (part 2)

And a review of Vaults of Vaarn 4

This week I took a look at the fourth issue of Vaults of Vaarn, which covers adventuring on the Great Wall of Vaarn, a colossal megastructure spanning the blue sands of this science-fantasy setting.

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Last week I covered 20 mechanics that aren’t usually used in RPGs. Here’s 20 more! Let me know if there’s any important ones that I missed.

King of the Hill

RPGs often suffer from the problem of stagnant combat, where characters just stand still and hit each other. If certain areas of the map become valuable to hold at different times, it would force the combatants to reposition, shaking up the board state and creating new opportunities. You could also apply this to things like dungeon crawling and overworld exploration, where the party could be incentivized to quickly race to and hold certain positions. This has some overlap with Push Your Luck mechanics, as seen in games like King of Tokyo, where being the king of the hill grants you some advantages but also tests how long you’re willing to be the punching bag.

Ladder Climbing

You could play out combat with hands of normal playing cards, where the combatants take turns playing cards or sets or cards that beat the value of the last play. The last person who can successfully play a card or set is the winner. The number of cards you start with could represent your stamina or skill.

There’s lots possible twists you could put on this, like tying the different cards to in-world actions, incentivizing players to lose a round so they have better cards next time, allowing players to combine cards in order to beat big plays by monsters, etc.

Line Drawing

A spellcasting system where you have to draw sigils using a limited number of straight lines? Generating effects by connecting symbols with lines that can never cross? Combat where you draw your character’s movements on a pad of paper, gaining effects when certain shapes are made? A health system where a monster’s body is diagrammed on a sheet of paper, and you draw straight lines on it to show which areas you’ve damaged?

Mancala

The classic mechanic where players pick up a group of tokens in one place, and then place them down one at a time in a sequence of connected places. Likely best for a magic or alchemy system where you can move around mana or ingredients to produce effects. Alternatively, a way to move agents around a city, similar to how Five Tribes works, where the more agents in the final location that match the final piece placed, the bigger the effect you generate there.

Map Reduction

Adding to a map is pretty normal for RPGs, but not a lot of games explore reducing it. A dungeon where rooms around the edges are slowly collapsing, forcing all the monsters and characters into a tighter and tighter space could be fun, reminiscent of battle royale videogames. Or a campaign where the party needs to accomplish a mission on a slowly sinking island.