Last time we've talked about sub-systems and discussed conflicts. This time we'll continue our discussion of sub-systems, focusing on different areas of the game where sub-systems may be useful. The discussion will also include things that may warrant unique rules even if not full fledged sub-systems.

PCs versus NPCs

You might recall that last time we've discussed sub-systems as based on wh questions. Here is a distinction based on who is doing the action, within the game world – with one system for player characters and another system for non player characters.

Mooks

One popular sub-system is a sub-system for mooks or 'extras', or more generally, for 'heroes' and 'everybody else'. Such systems appear in Mutants & Masterminds, Feng Shui and many other games. Feng Shui defines it even further – there's a distinction between characters who have a name and those who don't. The moment you reveal somebody's name, the mechanics begin treating him differently. Usually, the mechanical changes between the sub-systems render the mooks easier to kill – if, for instance, player characters have a chance to recover when their hit points reach zero, mooks simply die when that happens. Another popular mechanical change is that mooks haven't got access to various resources and abilities that all player characters have access to – for instance, in FATE, mooks have no Fate Points, and thus have a much lesser chance to succeed in their actions.

When are such mechanics useful? We've faced this dilemma when discussing narrative control in 'Who's the GM Here Anyway?'. Such mechanics separate the world into two, the heroes and the non-heroes. They are appropriate for games where the player characters are unique by definition, by the mere fact that they are the heroes of the story and the rest aren't. It's thus a good choice for action and pulp games. In games where the player characters aren't supposed to be inherently unique and are no better than anyone else in the world, such systems are inappropriate.

Easier Tracking

Another distinction between player characters and other characters arises from a different need – the need of the GM to be able to easily run all of the NPCs. While player characters are each run by a single player and for long periods of time, NPCs are all run by the GM and usually for shorter periods of time – often just a single scene. Thus, the mechanical needs are inherently different. It makes sense for the NPC mechanics to be simpler and lack 'memory'. That is, while player characters can have resources that are tracked beyond the scope of a single conflict, such tracking is usually useless for NPCs who won't be there after the conflict ends anyway.

An example of such memory-less mechanics can be found in monsters in the 4th edition of D&D. Player characters have powers which can be used at will, once per encounter or once per day. Monsters, however, have no need for such complex tracking. They especially have no need in powers that can be used once per day, since the monster won't be around long enough for this to matter. Instead, monster powers that need refreshing can be refreshed every round of combat, based on a roll the GM performs. So we see that this mechanism has no memory, except for whether a power still needs refreshing or not. There's no tracking of time beyond that.

In Conclusion

We've discussed two systems for separating PCs and NPCs and they sometimes yield similar results, but they are nevertheless different. The first separation stems from a narrative distinction – the player characters are the heroes of the story, everybody else isn't, and thus different rules apply to them. This separation is inappropriate for games where the player characters are just like everybody else. The second separation is a technical distinction – the GM needs to be able to keep track of all the NPCs, and thus it makes sense to make his job easier, and not force him to track things which won't matter anyway. The difference here is that simplifying NPCs doesn't necessarily make them easier to kill or less capable of dealing with the player characters.

Flavours of Powers

Another popular place where sub-systems occur is a distinction based on how things are done – with magic, with divine powers, with raw strength, with science, etc. This distinction is usually related to the special powers in the game. Some games use a unified system for all special powers, regardless of source. Hero System and Mutants & Masterminds are examples. Other games, however, have different powers work differently. In True20, there are three different ways in which powers work – for some the player rolls to determine success or failure; others have their effect determined by character level; still others have the player roll to determine the strength of the effect. In Anima there are unique ways to handle magic, summoning, psionics etc. In the 3rd edition of D&D, there were also unique systems for arcane magic, psionics, sword magic and more.

Such distinctions make the game a lot more complex, especially for the GM, who needs to know how all of the different systems operate. There are several benefits, however. One is flavour – having different sources of power behave different mechanically makes them actually feel different, rather than the same thing with the names filed off. If the characters are facing a foe who works completely unfamiliar magic, it helps if he also does so in a way completely unfamiliar to the players on a mechanical level.

Another benefit is to keep the game fresh. If all the enemies behave the same way mechanically, dealing with them may become tedious. Bringing in enemies who work differently on the mechanical level can keep things fresh. And from a different perspective, if a player is tired of playing a character, he may want to switch to a new character, who does different things. However, if those different things are actually the same things mechanically, then nothing much was gained – it doesn't really matter if it's called a fireball or a psionic blast if they have the same mechanical effect. But if the mechanical effects are different as well, then the player's goals are achieved and he gets a truly fresh experience.

Going Hypothetical

The distinctions we've discussed here and in the previous article aren't the only places where sub-systems can exist. The other places, however, are either out of the scope of our current discussion or haven't been implemented in any games we're aware of (or almost haven't been implemented). We'll mention those things to provide you with some food for thought and potentially interesting ideas, but won't dwell on them too much. We might return to some of those things in future articles.

Distinctions Based on the Who

The 'who is doing it' question allows for many more interesting distinctions, not only the one we've discussed previously, regarding the separations between PCs and NPCs.

First of all, there is the distinction between the players and the GM. The distinction between PCs and NPCs discussed previously is part of this, but not nearly the only part – if you consider everything the GM does as part of the game rules, then you can see that he's really playing by entirely different mechanics. Some games even include specific rules on what the GM can and can't do. For instance, in Don't Rest Your Head, there are specific rules which allow the GM to alter the roll results of players.

Looking at games with no GM or with the GM's responsibilities otherwise shared among the players makes it easier to see just what mechanics there are for GMs. Several games that are worth a look in this regard are Polaris, Fiasco and How We Came to Live Here.

In Polaris, for instance, every player controls a single main character, while the other three players (it is a game designed for four players) each control certain aspects of the world around that main character – one player controls the character's antagonists, the second player controls other characters who have formal relations to the main character and the third player controls other characters who have personal relations to the main characters. In other words, for each of the main characters, one player actually controls that main character, while the GM responsibilities are divided between the other three players. However, a deeper discussion on these issues requires a discussion of GM responsibilities in general and what a GM really is, which is out of the scope of this article.

There are other possible ways to make mechanical distinctions based on who the player is, sometimes blurred with distinctions based on who the character is. For instance, it's possible to imagine a superhero game with different mechanics for superheroes and their sidekicks. Alternatively, in the 4th edition of D&D, players are divided into roles based on what their job is in the party – defender, striker, controller, leader. Those roles have no mechanical meaning per se, but it's possible to imagine them having one – the role you choose to have would affect the way you play the game, regardless of how you choose to fulfill that role (with fists, with magic, with divine powers etc.)

Distinctions of Flavour

There are other distinctions that can be made, though they are much rarer, especially as full fledged sub-systems. Their purpose is usually flavour, much like with the flavours of powers previously, or to draw attention to specific things in the game. The cons and pros are essentially identical to the ones discussed in the section on favours of powers. The rules become more complicated but it's easier to keep things fresh and give unique flavour to things.

Here are some of those distinctions, provided mostly as food for thought:

• A distinction based on where things are occurring in the game world. An example could be zones of wild magic which are present in the campaign setting of Forgotten Realms for D&D, and which have unique mechanical effects, such as having the player roll a die to see how the spells he casts are altered in that zone.
• A distinctions based on when things occur: A possible example could be a game about vampires which has different rules for playing during daytime and playing during nighttime.
• A distinction based on why things are done: This could put an emphasis on actions that are done for a specific cause or out of certain motives.

Summary

In this article we've continued our discussion on sub-systems. We've discussed two major distinctions here. The first is a distinction between PCs and NPCs. It can be useful for two things – one is to emphasise that the characters are the heroes of the story, which is often appropriate for action and pulp games, but not when you want your characters to be 'just regular people'; the other is to make the GM's life easier and relieve him of the need to keep track of unnecessary things, which is almost always a good idea, but you should be careful not to turn it into a narrative distinction as well if you don't want one.

The second distinction is between various flavours of actions and special powers, which can help keep the game fresh and give flavour to the flavours (if you pardon the pun), but at the obvious price of making the mechanics a lot more complicated. There are other possible distinctions we've mentioned, both when it comes to flavour and when it comes to player and character roles. These are either less explored in general or simply out of the scope of this article, but you should still think of these issues. We, for one, think that some of the hypothetical options we've brought up could be quite interesting to see in games (and maybe they have been implemented in games we aren't aware of).

Where We're Headed

The articles until now have discussed the basic mechanical elements of role-playing games and how they should be used. We hope you've had fun so far. In the next article we'll be taking a step back to talk some theory and discuss game design as a whole. Stay tuned.