Lens Theory

“You have two stats.”

This subtitle is an RPG in-joke that references the way people pitch RPGs that derive from John Harper’s Lasers & Feelings, in which you, quite literally, have two stats. In L&F, your character’s proficiencies are distinguished along a single axis: are they better at lasers (using science and reasoning) or feelings (using rapport and passion)? These stats are diametrically opposed; your strength in one is always at the detriment of the other. This makes a strong Feelings character feel a bit different than a strong Lasers character, but fundamentally, the game revolves around the same, single d6 roll — it just depends on how you want to use it.

Furthermore, it allows the player to evaluate two separate characters on this scale, differentiating them by their competency with this particular diametrically opposed roll. Janet who has a score of 2, is objectively better at responding to challenges with feelings (rolling over her score) than Jasper, who has a score of 4.

Like in L&F, in many many many other RPGs, you will find that the structure of a character, at their core, is similarly grounded in stats (AKA attributes, ability scores, whatever you want to call them). For those who have never played an RPG — the purest of souls — note that these stats are used during play and interact with various subsystems.

What those stats are often varies between games; one game might have you score your character’s Strength and Speed, another game will have you score how Cool and Weird your character is. Different characters in the same game, however, will be measured on the same scales. Although the individual numerical values may change, the stats themselves are identical. This forms the first layer of mechanical symmetry.

Familiar Function

I was reading over the new expansion to Ironsworn: Starforged, Sundered Isles, the other day. The Ironsworn series is very dear to my heart not as something I have had the opportunity to play a lot of but because it holds so many kernels of game design I am obsessed with. Now, with what might be considered the third stab at the system with the newest expansion, I was really considering the role of the 5 core stats that each character is built off of across the games and how they key into its subsystems. Something that I had taken for granted until that point was that they are all roll modifiers. Each stat was doing functionally the same thing.

I knew it didn’t have to be that way, however. The Fire Emblem series has an interesting array of stats for that reason. They’re fascinating not because of what they are but rather how they function.

A character’s hit points determine how much damage they can take before being killed in combat. Strength and Magic increase a character’s damage with physical and magical weapons respectively. Defense and Resistance work in the opposite way, reducing incoming physical and magical damage. Skill adds a chance to a character’s attacks to deal a critical hit and inflict triple damage, whereas luck reduces the chance of critical hits against them. The speed stat is compared between two opponents in a fight and if one character’s speed is higher than the other by a specific number, that character will get two attacks in.

Each stat is interpreted through the system in a completely unique way. In short, different stats do different things. None of the examples that Fire Emblem uses (with the exception of speed) are considered unique, but when understood collectively as a stat array, we see a stat system that evaluates characters from multiple functional angles. Many analogue RPGs will take the opposite approach, however, instead favouring the simplicity of making each stat functionally identical. This is the second layer of mechanical symmetry.

The Unified Resolution Mechanic

Long ago, when I was but a wee babe bouncing through the brush of a birch grove in the BC interior, the sound of trumpets heralded the arrival of a new age in a land far beyond the boundaries of my little hometown. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the universal resolution mechanic was being born.

When most people imagine their experiences rolling dice in D&D nowadays, they will likely be familiar with the core procedure of “roll 1d20 + a relevant stat modifier and compare the result to a target number”. This is the unified resolution mechanic upon which everything else in D&D seems to be built, and simultaneously serves as the “fallback” for when there are no rules to account for what a player is attempting. “Oh, you’re trying to juggle bananas? Uhhhh, give me a dexterity check.”

The unified resolution mechanic is closely associated with the publishing of D&D 3e, though this kind of central mechanic probably predates it in other games. It is notable here, however, both due to the commercial success of the product and also because it stands in stark contrast with previous editions, which utilized a myriad of different resolution mechanics depending on which subsystem you were interacting with. The earliest version of D&D’s thief in Greyhawk, for instance, used percentile checks to resolve picking locks, sneaking around, and other thiefy things. Now, as with all things, the thief must rely on one of those D20s.

A unified resolution mechanic creates an effortlessly expandable and replicable system that can be quickly parsed with a high degree of verisimilitude. Anyone can make something using it, it seems to suggest. This makes it a perfect solution for homebrewers and publishers alike, allowing for entirely new games even in completely different genres to be rapidly spun-off from the core experience with minimal systems tinkering. Wizards of the Coast clearly saw this potential, given the publishing of products like D20 Modern.

The unified resolution mechanic, as promised, assimilates the core form of engagement with the system into the same format, making the experience of cleaving a goblin extremely similar to the experience of climbing a wall. Another mode of character differentiation flattened. This is the third layer of mechanical symmetry.

…and The Many Consequences Thereof

This feels like the unholy advent of a systems design paradigm that has affected the shape and expectation of RPGs across play cultures. Within the throes of my eternal love/hate relationship with the lineage of Powered by the Apocalypse Games, I can’t help but feel exasperated at how the move structure created the same shape but with different materials (roll 2d6 + a stat modifier, where a result of 10+ is a full success, 7-9 is mixed, and 6- is a failure).

Why oh why do you do this to me, RPGs? What have I done to deserve this punishment?

And yet, these are the most hackable of systems, fated to self-replication into infinity. Piles upon piles upon piles of games with half a dozen or fewer stats that all function in the same way under a unified resolution mechanic. Expandable and easy to use. Perfect symmetry.

There is value in that, to be sure, and yet I can’t help but feel like we collectively experience a failure of imagination here. I want to disrupt the symmetry, to break apart this universal frame within which we are expected to play. I want to get out.

Lenses

I recently played through the first region in the demo of Enotria: The Last Song. Enotria is an Italian folkloric fantasy game based on Fromsoft’s Souls games and their spin-offs. In the game, you play as the “Maskless One,” the sole figure without a role in a cursed play that has enraptured the land. Without an assigned role, you are invited to don whatever masks you can get your hands on, allowing you to quickly take on new roles throughout the game. Each of this masks comes equipped with their own abilities, meaning that to swap from one mask to another suggests that you’ll also swap your approach to a situation. That is the experience I came to expect, at least.

In my few hours of play, however, this did not feel particularly true. Using one of the masks specialized for the game’s magic system, I attempted to craft a build that would be much more of a spell-caster than my other masks. While I technically did do that, the experience of being a spellcaster was a lot like the experience of the other masks I tried out. I was up close, dodging and blocking attacks as I could, striking with my sword, making use of consumable items to get the upper hand on my enemies, and casting spells when they were not in cooldown. This was identical to the experience of the other masks, with the only distinguishing factor here being that I was a bit better and lingered a bit longer in the spells part of the sequence. (Yes, every other mask was casting spells too.)

When comparing Enotria to the Souls games I have played, and even though the mainline Souls games are not exemplars on this, I found myself missing how different it felt in play to be a spellcaster vs. a duelist vs. an archer, vs. a guy with a big fucking hammer. Each archetype was a unique lens through which you would view the game as a whole — approaching the same challenges with a different paradigm.

Mechanical Subjectivity

Orthogonal unit differentiation is a term, mostly used in strategy games theory, that describes how a character or unit can be distinguished from others based on unique functionality rather than on comparative axes. What distinguishes a spellcaster from a warrior at their core is not that they have high intelligence and low strength, but that they cast spells. I find myself drawn to this kind of mechanical asymmetry because it forms the basis for a unique lens for that character to play through.

Currently I am playing in a campaign of Forbidden Lands, GM’d by the lovely Jay White, in which I am playing a young seer, Zora, whose primary way of solving problems is with precognition and a little healing. She was absolutely useless in a fight for most of our campaign; a fragile thing with no ability to do harm and no means to protect herself from it. This forced me to find more utility-focused things to do when the violence broke out.

Even though I have recently learned how to hurt people by thinking bad things at them, these powers are not enough on their own, and so I still often have to puzzle solve my way out of danger. This was emphasized in our session last night, where my companions were being pursued by a violent threat. While I could have brain blasted one of the two of them, there is always a chance of failure and the other would have probably taken me out anyways.

Instead, I used my future sight (the Intuition spell, for anyone keeping track), to ask, in a metatextual way that only my type of character can, if the pursuers would kill me on sight. Jay told me “no”, and so, already injured, I threw myself to the floor and let my companions escape while the pursuers captured me.

An unexpected solution for a desperate situation, unique to Zora’s particular subjectivity, enabled by her particular mechanical lens. It felt so right.