For a while I've been trying to find a way to reconcile the play styles and customization of a game like Monster Hunter with the wargaming and storytelling of Dungeons & Dragons or Iron Kingdoms RPG. This is going to get a bit long, and is a little stream of consciousness, so it's all hidden below in a convenient Read More.
Monster Hunter is a series that I greatly admire. It's got 14 (nearly) unique weapons with different properties, combos, and abilities-- and within those weapons there are a variety of different ways to play, and different armor skill sets built around these play styles.
Of course, the combat in Monster Hunter revolves around a basic set of rules that each armor skill or weapon property interacts with, obeys, or modifies. Stamina, attack chain limitations, available Wirebugs (in the case of Monster Hunter Rise), and weapon sharpness are some of the factors that control combat in the franchise.
Examples:
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Stamina controls the duration of Dual Blades's "demon mode" and Bow's attack pacing.
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Attack chains can only follow a number of set branching paths, so Greatsword can't use its most powerful charged attack without the previous two attacks before it, and Gunlance can't use its "wyrmstake" attack without completing certain combos.
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Wirebugs grant access to very powerful abilities, but each ability has a different required amount of wirebugs to engage the maneuver and different recharge rates on the wirebugs after activation.
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Weapon sharpness determines whether hunters can continue attacking a target's body zones as part of a combo (they may not be sharp enough, and instead bounce off).
Now, this is all well and good, but Monster Hunter is an action video game and not a turn-based tactical RPG. It also doesn't have magical spells. Character growth is based on reaction time, combat style familiarity, and ever-expanding access to armor skills and decoration skills. TTRPGs are more often characterized by growth through directly adding functionality to player characters via storytelling moments, magical items, and using Experience Points to level up and reach new skills. Furthermore, TTRPGs give access to an expanded list of possibilities based on imagination and Game Master interference, which video games do not often include.
So, about that personal breakthrough I had.
I was watching a Matt Colville video (https://youtu.be/g8xbrLVZ31c?si=WWfi8LvhbQaJZCkE) about armor and weapons in the in-progress TTRPG by MCDM. Their present conclusion, barring any further changes in design, relies upon putting available combat actions within chosen gear sets, so that the concept of "best weapon" is less de-facto based on stat bonuses and instead helps to serve the fantasy of a particular flavor of character.
Now, that sounds really cool! I'm looking forward to trying this someday. But there's a problem: I value decision making at most levels of character creation and customization. Certainly, MCDM's choice does sound promising for pulp fantasy TTRPG gaming, but I'm looking in a different direction: Free form tactical combat where every player is essentially playing a different game.
That sounds weird, but let's go back to Monster Hunter: A very large portion of combat styles between weapons revolve around completely different mechanics. Greatsword is slow and deliberate with powerful blows; Dual Blades goes hard and fast with weaker hits but a lot of them; Bow manages distance and stamina gauge to keep on the pressure with special arrow coatings that activate status effects with incredible speed; Charge Blade builds up and manages its meter to spend on enhancing Axe Mode attacks and blocking capabilities, while also managing combos to power up the Sword Mode functions or to dump its charged up Phials for a big damage payoff; Lance relies on standing its ground between monster attacks, using opportunities to counter-hit during important windows during a monster's combos and poking it down when the monster needs to rest; Insect Glaive directs its Kinsect to gather monster essences so it can increase its weak hit chains into multiple attacks and attack relentlessly from the air with stamina management (although its extended combos on ground are just as devastating); Heavy Bowgun keeps up high DPS based on situational usage of limited Ammunition that can be crafted in the field, with room for tanking or high range capabilities.
These are just a fraction of the weapons in Monster Hunter, and you can see that their play styles have a great tendency to not overlap in functionality. The buttons you press are often the same, but the game is vastly different based on what your weapon is-- there's different ranges and combos and speeds with which weapons attack, and often times picking up a new weapon results in having to completely evolve your approach to the game.
Do you know of a TTRPG where playing the game is vastly different between character types? I do.
Powered by the Apocalypse.
Okay, that sounds a little weird. PbtA is very often a sort of storytelling game first and a combat game second. But there's one particular feature of the PbtA RPG system that DOES come to mind: Playbooks.
Playbooks are a feature of Powered by the Apocalypse where character archetypes have completely unique and interesting rules that govern what the archetype can do and when they are allowed to do it.
So, my revelation.
What if I were to use weapon types as a sort of "playbook" for my own personal TTRPG-in-development? "Weapon Types" doesn't need to refer specifically to weapons, but approaches to combat-- Polearms have different combat applications from Swords, which have different combat functionality from Hammers, which should never be similar to Magic. I could allow for different approaches to Magic-- Casting From Within, which uses the stamina/mana systems to formulate spells, or Casting From Without, which uses dice to try to formulate complete spells (and the stamina system to make limited substitutions of certain symbols).
Playbooks! Playbooks WITHIN playbooks! Combat can take place within each character's own available approach to the game, while social encounters can be more unified as general game features. Players could learn how to fight and expand their skill range with different weapons, and change books when they have a different weapon equipped. Most people only use one type of weapon in TTRPGs so this isn't usually a problem, but the freaks like me can have the joy of not getting too bored or complacent with combat by changing up weapons!
...This is, of course, still a WORK-IN-PROGRESS. I have a lot of writing to do, and the big thing is to get it out of my head and onto a table to see how people like it. But I really want an interesting and fun Tales of Kalzeria TTRPG to share unique parts of my comic world without having to take the story there.
I'll write more about it soon!