I really want to make an RPG not be a yawn fest. The classic RPG turn formula is pretty simple: Attack, Magic, Item, Defend. Magic and Item require a resource to use, although with tonics and other Spell Point restoring items, its basically just an gold based economy at that point. So you either swat with your weapon or spend some gold pieces to have a more interesting turn. Or just sit there and take a bit less damage, I guess, but there’s no reason to choose Defend.

This is incredibly boring after a short while, but you see this convention in current RPGs despite it being well into 40 years old in gaming by now. The choices are incredibly narrow in practice; mages having a low attack stat means you use spells on their turn. Fighters having a low magic stat means you use attack on their turn. Bo-ring. Some games do buck convention using action points, which frees you up from “you got one choice, and it was probably attack” turns. I like that, as it makes things a bit more like a TTRPG, but I want to marry the idea of getting multiple moves in a turn to a bit of a deck builder RPG.

If you haven’t played a deck builder, you should. They’re essentially non-stop tactical combat games, so the battle system is the bulk of the fun – and they usually are. Slay The Spire gets a lot of praise, justly so, although if I could recommend one, it would be Griftlands. That game is amazingly fun, and with enough skill and luck, you can generate some truly insane move sets that punish the enemy for even looking your way. Both of these games use a 3 point action economy, but really highlight a passive skill for each of the main characters. Even if they had the same card set, they would play differently because of their passive skill. Rook has a charge meter that he can use for his attacks, Smith heals damage he inflicts upon himself, etc. Sure, they get attacks each turn, but their playstyle is uniquely different because of how they are designed versus how they are statted. Give me an alien guy who is a drunken brawler, gulping down alien beers and tossing the empties at foes.

I bring that up because I want to marry the concepts together, as well as buck a convention: Attack shouldn’t be the “I don’t want to spend any resources” turn option. Just let everybody do one, even the mages. In a TTRPG, the mages would never willingly be in melee combat, but in an RPG, they’re perfectly able to dash over to the other team’s side and bonk with their stick, then dash back to their place.

So what about magic? Let them do that too. Ditch the resource cost, though. That’s stupid. If the only thing mana points do is make you buy tonics, then basically you’re paying GP to play the game. Wholly unsatisfying. Mages are supposed to be hurling lightning bolts and things, let the player have fun doing that without the subconscious voice going “but this is costing me something.”

Voila. You now have a two turn economy for everybody. They can’t string together a bunch of attacks or spells, but they can do two interesting things per turn. The key is that the characters should be different enough that they’re not just bonking with weapon stats or casting the same damage spells with varying magic stats. Characters should feel different, and that’s where the passive abilities come in. Different move sets, but also different feel for the characters, to remind the player about who they are as PCs.

The other design choice I want to borrow from deck builder RPGs is randomness of your options. In classic RPG style, whatever moves you have, you can always access. If you’ve learned Cure and Fireball, then every turn you have the option of choosing those. In a TTRPG, you seldom are given wide access to your moves. Not because the GM takes them away from you, but the tide of combat presents some opportunities better than other ones. Is your foe standing in some water? Maybe fire based magic isn’t the winning move here. Or maybe your ally is too far away from you for the range of your healing spell, and you need to use some other option to save their neck this round. That sort of thing is hard to manage in an RPG game (unless you’re Baldur’s Gate 3), but there should be more cleverness than “I throw da spell dat makes da bad guys fall down” every single turn.

So here’s convention buck #2: Keep combat interesting with good options. Attack options in games should feel like you’re contributing. This is one aspect where deck builder RPGs often fail; characters have basic cards like kick or stab that you either upgrade into something better, or pay to get rid of from your deck. If there are better options presented, then the more times you pull kick or stab out of your deck, the less you like them. Not all attacks have to be equal, but there has to be some use for them beyond “I stab with swords to make da bad guys fall down.”

I’ll show this more in the individual combat posts, but the idea is that every turn, each player gets to pick one attack and one special ability from a very limited number of options provided for each. The idea is not to weigh down the player with optimization, but to let them choose one of two (or three) attacks and spells each round from their repertoire. This is similar to how deckbuilders can give you iffy draws in a round, and you have to make the most of it. But could we design things to have all kick and stabs have at least one unique benefit beyond making damage numbers fly out of heads?

Give a bleed to stab. Give a bruise debuff to kick. Deckbuilders often allow you to level up to these abilities by playing the same card repeatedly, but until you do level it up, they are boring, basic attacks. That way, even if you don’t get your preferred attack for a round, you still are contributing. This is more similar to how in a TTRPG, you may not be able to whip out a fireball, but you can choose something else in your arsenal for a round that makes the best of the situation.

So what about character progression?  As you level up your character in those and get more complex attacks and more diversity of spell slots, you’ll be able to mix those up in combat as well. That can be done with a deck as well, you simply add in another card and that ability will come up from the draw. You’ll always have your magic missiles, so can use that when available, but can also use your more powerful abilities that you get from levelling up. The other thing this system can allow is to give you more cards per turn. While you might start out with a choice of two, as you become more advanced in your abilities, you should get a third slot to consider. With three characters in battle, the goal is not to make each turn seem overly burdensome, but fun enough that you get to enjoy something interesting to do while listening to a funny story.