# New (Year's) Resolution Mechanic Blog Challenge 2024 :: Zoom
tags: #thoughts/new-years-resolution-mechanic/2024 #thoughts/game-design #game/rpg/zoom
> [!quote] From https://www.prismaticwasteland.com/blog/new-years-resolution-mechanic :
>
> **I issue a challenge to YOU and ye to all bloggers!** In the dawning light of 2024, you must come up with a New Year's Resolution. But I’m not talking about your typical forbearance from vices or oaths to lift weights. I’m talking something way more important: Resolution Mechanics.
>
> **I intend to keep this post short and sweet** (as an indication that this challenge is no great commitment), so if you want exhaustive treatises on resolution mechanics, you can look to my own recent defense of the blackjack roll under method or Goblin Punch’s exhaustive (but never exhausting) review of resolution mechanics in general.
>
> My challenge is thus: **In January 2024, come up with a new resolution mechanic for a TTRPG and give it a name.** It doesn’t need to be good (in fact, most the good ones have probably already been taken). It just needs to be new! You don’t need to plan to use it in your games; it can be absolute detritus for you. But one blogger’s trash is another designer’s treasure. You never know how great an impact one throwaway idea on a blog might have.
Far be it from me to pass up on an opportunity to dip into one of my older notes to myself from my main [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md) Vault and pull out something to look at.
This is really an extract from a larger text which wrestles with the idea of applying zooming as an abstraction to the game as a whole, from structuring maps to combat to player conflicts.
I end up asking such questions as "do characters exist as a first-class entity?" That's not a question most people ask themselves in the context of a TTRPG but – I've always been just that little extra bit insane.
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## [[Zoom (RPG)|Zoom]]
![[Zoom (cover).jpg]]
The underlying idea is that mechanically, everything at every level can be zoomed into, effectively using a 3 x 3 grid of d6s. This applies to physical spaces just as aggressively as it does to time and sequences of events.
This is in part inspired by the mapmaking systems of [[Two-Hour Wargames]] and the whole mechanism of [Wallet Stations](https://youtu.be/hkoi-HiYFYA).
Maps would be generated by rolling nine dice and figuring out a general kind of space, whether it be mountainous, plains, urban, etc. (Think of the overall sections of the board in a 2HW map.) Each die would represent some kind of smaller subsection, read off a table for the next up larger type.
If more detail is desired, zoom in again and generate more detail. Interpretation may be necessary for a given scale.
This should work for buildings and even rooms in the same way.
Game events may be resolved in a way reminiscent of **[[Microscope]]**, where a single roll determines outcomes and beginnings, and then subsequent zooming in breaks those into more detailed chunks, but with a known outcome.
(Should this be linearized into sections of three since time is linear or do we allow branching to introduce parallel concerns? I'm thinking about how [[Capes]] introduces additional Conflicts which splits off in interesting ways.)
### Maps
Set the basic tone for the map as a whole:
Roll 1d6:
- *1-2* Grassy
- *3-4* Built Up
- *5-6* Mountainous
Roll 9d6 and either assign or randomly appoint each to a sector of the map.
- *1-2* More Complex
- *3-4* No Change
- *5-6* Less Complex
These are relative to whatever kind of terrain is already in that area.
*If the general area is grassy, *more complex terrain might be scrub, might be bush, might be a forest. Less complex terrain might be a lake, it might explicitly be a large flat area, possibly a field.
*If the general area is urban/built-up,* more complex terrain might be a building with an interior you can go into or a car park with lots of vehicles to duck down between and uses cover. Less complex terrain very well could be the middle of the street. Or an empty lot.
*If the general area is mountainous,* more complex terrain might simply be higher, spikier peaks or it might actually be a cave which could itself be zoomed into. Less complex terrain might be a flat valley or descent to rolling hills. (Of course, depending on the situation, a flat valley could be more complex if you're hunting down an army waiting for you.) Use your own judgment.
*If your map is actually indoors,* this is still quite usable. More complex terrain may be a piece of furniture or a closed room that needs to be broken into. Less complex terrain may be an open play area or a large kitchen or a dormitory.
Depending on how large you envision the original area, each of the sub areas can be very different. *Zoom in to whatever detail feels appropriate.* Don't feel constrained to zoom in equally everywhere if that area just isn't interesting. If it becomes interesting later, you can zoom in then.
### Conflicts
Whether it's a fistfight, a nuclear war, a dance off, or a seduction attempt, all Conflicts are resolved the same way.
When establishing a Conflict, make sure that the stakes are stated before anything else. What is the point of this conflict at all? What is the intended outcome? What is the impact of failure? You'll need to know these things at the beginning because they will guide everything that follows.
Roll 1d6 to determine the overall tone of the Conflict result:
- *1-2* Failure to achieve
- *3-4* Partial success
- *5-6* Achieving goals
*A failure to achieve* means that the stakes are lost and of the failure conditions have been triggered. If you are trying to capture the bad guy and if you fail he got away, he got away. If you were trying to soften up the enemy's morale with a nuclear assault but took the chance they could be really pissed off and energized to strike back? Guess what, the Empire is about to strike back.
*If you get a partial success,* you get what you were intending to do but there are other factors which have made things more complicated, a change to the situation so that your intent is not fully in line with what you want, or otherwise given you less than you'd prefer. The stakes are not lost but they are transformed. Maybe you failed a little bit but not all the way. Maybe you succeeded and failed. Look to the improv techniques of "yes, but…" and "yes, and…" to help guide your thinking if something doesn't come immediately to mind.
If you achieve your goals, congratulations. You got what you wanted to happen and the thing that you didn't want to happen, in fact, did not. You probably feel pretty self-satisfied right now.
Not so fast.
If the Conflict was just an easy, one-off thing that you really didn't care about that much and the outcome is acceptable, you're done. Go on to the next thing. It's honestly better to take your chips and leave the table.
However, if you didn't get what you want or you just want to know about what happened more specifically, prepare to zoom in.
Conflicts, occurring in linear time, have three segments:
- The Setup
- The Heat
- The Fallout
Not coincidentally, each of these segments contains the same three segments within them. Each of the segments within them recursively descend in the same way. Ad infinitum, though you probably don't want to go that far.
#### Conflict Example
Let's say that the current Conflict on the table is a duel to the death between one of the main protagonists of the story, your favorite, and the big bad guy. It's an intense and serious scene and the outcome is very important.
The hero is the traditional dashing fencer, with a feather in his cap and the love of a beautiful woman on the line. The villain is the hero's mentor and taught them everything they know about fencing, about love, about life. This is a serious betrayal and someone is not going home.
Let's find out what the overall tone of the Conflict is:
3\. *A partial success.*
That's clearly less than ideal. What does that actually mean? What kind of a partial success can we have in this Conflict?
Well, part of the problem in making that decision is that we were lazy when it came to defining what the original Conflict was. We didn't set the stakes appropriately. We said "it was a duel to the death," but we didn't say whose death. You can't be afraid to state the outcome of a Conflict up front. If you do, you cripple yourself.
So let's go back and refine. We know it's a duel to the death – it's a duel to the death of the hero's mentor. That's the intent. When someone walks away, the mentor will be dead and the hero walks away.
Fantastic. So we know what the partial success is – the mentor is dead. But why is it partial? What about our stakes has gone awry.
One of the other players throws in, "yes, *but* – your lady love was actually in love with your mentor and her heart is broken."
That is some pretty brutal fallout and probably deserves some further exploration.
Let's go back to the segments of the Conflict and think about where zooming in might be very useful.
There seems to be a bit that could be grounded in the set-up, so let's zoom in there. We'll roll the tone die once more and see what it has to say. First we need to determine what we were doing during the setup phase, how were we preparing, what kind of actions were happening – not just by the hero but by the world? We don't have to define or specify all of them, just sketch out a general idea.
Obviously the hero was undergoing a training montage, swinging around ropes, practicing his fencing, and obsessing about revenge. You know, like heroes do. We know that the segment is successful in moving us forward toward actually achieving the goals of the overall scene but not only that, achieving the goal of the setup, to be more prepared for the final showdown.
(I'm being a little sloppy here on purpose. If you really wanted to be hard-core about it, you would establish the stakes of each of the segments in exactly the same way as you would/did for the Conflict itself. After all, realistically and mechanically, they are identical to Conflicts which represent portions of the event, the way things play out. Keep that in mind for the future)
5\. *Achieving goals.*
Interesting. The setup phase went just swimmingly. No complications, no difficulties, no failures. The goal has been achieved; the hero is prepared and his obsession is fed.
This could be the seeds of later downfall.
We could drill deeper into the Setup if we wanted. Are there hidden things which have failed? Are there experiences which have gone sideways? Are there forgotten issues?
We'll let that slide for now.
Instead, let's turn our attention to the Heat, the meat of the scene, the core of the Conflict resolution, when the stakes on the table come to a crashing crescendo.
What does the tone die say?
3\. *A partial success.*
This may explain things a bit. In the midst of combat, something went terribly awful, causing you to lose the stakes of the Heat.
What were the stakes of the Heat? We probably should have set those down before rolling the dice in the first place.
The stakes on the table are the death of your mentor in a duel. We know that you have been training obsessively, dwelling on the betrayal that he had provided to you. (Was that betrayal making overtures to your lady?
"Yes, you fought your mentor with the zealous passion of obsession, driving him to the brink, pushing him to the absolute limit of everything that he has taught you and everything that you learned on your own – but you took it too far, overplayed your hand, and gloated as you struck him down, causing your lady to cry out and come to a full realization of how much she loved him more than you."
Like you do.
That is a fair amount of sufficient brutality. It explains why the outcome of the overall Conflict is not what you wanted overall and it explains why.
We could stop right here if we wanted to. We could move on to the next Conflict which has its own stakes, following up the change in the fiction which has been established. If we are still curious or want to explore what might have been going on, we could continue to the Fallout phase and see how that shakes out within the context of the original stakes.
For now, we'll leave it
**Conflict:** A duel to the death – it's a duel to the death of the hero's mentor. When someone walks away, the mentor will be dead and the hero walks away, vengeance satisfied.
*Tone:* Yes, *but* – your lady love was actually in love with your mentor and her heart is broken.
| Setup | Heat | Fallout |
| ---- | ---- | ---- |
| *Goals Achieved:* The hero is prepared and his obsession is fed. | *Partial success:* The death of your mentor in a duel. We know that you have been training obsessively, dwelling on the betrayal that he had provided to you.<br><br>Yes, you fought your mentor with the zealous passion of obsession, driving him to the brink, pushing him to the absolute limit of everything that he has taught you and everything that you learned on your own – *but* you took it too far, overplayed your hand, and gloated as you struck him down, causing your lady to cry out and come to a full realization of how much she loved him more than you. | |
#### Advanced Techniques
Remember, you can zoom in as far as you want, as deeply as you want, building out the complexity of each part of the timeline of every Conflict until you're satisfied.
If you wanted, you could use the terrain die instead of the tone die to determine what goes on in each of the segments. Things could become more complex, less complex, or stay just the same. You could use both die together and create a matrix of possible outcomes. Maybe you fail to achieve your goal but the situation is simplified in so doing.
Advanced techniques. They live everywhere.
## Exunt
This is really just a sketch for what could be a much broader game and probably extends past just being a new mechanic for the new year. Quite a lot of this text is brand-new and not salvaged from my original notes, which is nice.
It remains to be seen whether some of the questions in my mind can be resolved? Are "characters" really a first-class entity that are owned by a single player? Are there a pool of characters that anyone can bring into play? Is there a Resource that players can use to affect the outcome of the die rolls, or is the focus more on storytelling and working together to find out what happens? Can you have more than one Conflict going on at the same time on the table? (In the example, the hero's duel of vengeance with his mentor might be running parallel with the lady trying to make it in time to confess her love before he dies!)
There's a lot of flexibility implicit in the structure but it still needs some significant kicks to make it move down the road. We'll see if I come back to this later. It could happen!
Until then, keep digging up what I'm burying in the garden. The bones are tasty!
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