Dungeon Mecha

I Turned Into the Odd into a Story Game

Part I | No HP, No Statblocks, No Attack Rolls
Everyone’s adding levels and feats and slot-based inventory to Into the Odd. It's 10 years old. I think it’s time we start getting rid of a few things.

Rules
Approach every encounter using Chris McDowall's Information, Choice, Impact Doctrine. This is standard ItO so far. Instead of acts of violence triggering a series of combat resolution rolls, resolve everything at once:

Information. Telegraph danger. Answer questions. Questions are gameplay.
Choice. Clarify consequences. A different approach results in a different impact.
Impact. Follow through.

Approach: Use a boulder to crush a goblin. Tell me how you avoid the basilisk's gaze and I won't ask for a saving throw against petrification. Go on a quest for a ballistae of dragon-slaying and come up with a solid plan and the impact will be d12 damage instead of instant death. Zoom in or out depending on which characters are at risk.

Part II | Slaying Dragons
What if the consequence of dragon slaying isn't that everyone has to make a Dexterity Saving Throw or die, it's that the village you swore to protect is turned to ash. Yes you've learned it's missing a scale and you found the elven ballistae and enlisted a local lord's knights but it's a dragon, destruction is a given. What will be the price of victory?

Rules. Addendum
Resolution through conversation. Telegraph danger, answer questions, clarify consequences, follow through. I'm going to diverge from ICI and separate Impact into Impact and Consequence.

Impact. Do the players have a reasonable plan and the right tools for their desired Impact?

Consequence. Whenever players make a Choice, there's a consequence and the way in which the players approach an encounter determines what the consequence is.

Gameplay: Players describe their approach and commit to an encounter, then the referee describes an appropriate consequence. If the players don’t like it they can resist by describing how they react and then they or the referee will propose a different consequence of commensurate effect. And so on until the players settle on a consequence.

Examples. I'm framing these in terms of choice and outcome but assume there's back-and-forth proposals and clarification from both sides.

Ambush. The referee telegraphs that there are harpies in the area. The players choose to continue through the pass. A turn or two later and the harpies attack. Initial consequence: the Fighter and Dwarf must make a DEX Save to avoid maliciously pushed boulders; Two harpies fly off with the Wizard if he fails a STR Save. Resistance: The Fighter resists by taking d8 STR damage; The Dwarf (having low STR at the moment) would rather his pack fall down the mountain; The Thief resists with DEX to prevent the wizard from being dragged away. And then the conversation flows into how do the characters respond to the harpies that are very much still a threat.

Goblins. 5 of them in a tunnel holding filthy spears. They're blocking the way forward and the players want to get past. If the characters charge in with swords, the person most at risk will have to make a STR Save against poison. If they push a boulder onto their heads I'll roll a d6, on a 4+, one of them escapes. If they try talking I'll make an a reaction roll when the players are spotted.

Everything else. I kind of already covered dragons. The principles there are some encounters need extra planning and dragons should be scary. Another principle: PCs can flee an encounter; give up success for a lesser consequence. I didn't talk about social or environmental encounters but that hasn't changed much from ItO, consequences can be resisted by taking attribute damage if you can explain why. The initial consequence of a heist might be getting caught by the guards. Magic is always dangerous, roll on the peril table whenever a spell is cast, the severity depends on its impact.

Part III | This is a Story Game and here's what I mean
The story isn’t on your character sheet, the story is the choices you're offered and how you respond to them. The rules are a shared understanding of how much your character can change the world in a single conversation.

Impact and consequence are levers that can be pulled to get different types of stories. Maybe they don't need the javelin of dragon-slaying to slay the dragon at all. Or maybe it takes everything they've got to not die. Pull the wet torch, dead hireling, magical curse, lever for survival fantasy. Pull the ashen village, oath unfulfilled, honorable reputation lever for Arthurian legend. Pull the ecclesiastical disapproval, slighted first cousin, scheme unraveling lever for Renaissance Venice. My theory is you can pull levers for pretty much any type of story.

In this way it's similar to Dreaming Dragonslayer's story games—a framework for telling stories—and not what you might usually think of when someone uses the term.

It might not be far off from a story game story game though. Every player has final authorial authority over what happens to their character, characters can't die or get hurt if the player doesn't want them to. Authority for other types of consequences is present in that players still have final say, but limited by the circumstances of the world as laid out by the referee.

Notes
This is a followup to my 1 HP Goblin post.

Influences. The 1 HP Dragon started this whole thing. Bastionland has shaped how I've played for the last 5 years. Saving Throws not skill checks. Blades in the Dark. I'm always thinking about position and effect and I yoinked the resistance roll. Blades is also where I first encountered games as conversation. The 16 HP dragon gets at something the 1 HP dragon doesn't, which is that the dragon will destroy the village if the PCs don't stop it. Conqueror of Kamelia by Nael. What does it mean when your choice to act violently always succeeds? Of course his always, if you're willing to deal with the consequences is more elegant than my always as long as you have the right tools and are willing to deal with the consequences.

What’s next. My first heartbreaker? Character creation in assorted genres. More theories. Wizards in Mythic Bastionland? Magical fallout tables. Playtests!?