Role-playing games are driven by a die shtick and a coin trick.

This shouldn’t be taken as a universal, but it’s how we think about the games we design and the games we engage with. We look at where the die shticks[1] are, where the coin tricks are, and how they intersect.

And when we see a game that doesn’t have one of those to, that also makes us think. (Like how A Penny For My Thoughts has no die shtick.)

The die shtick

The “die shtick” is about some sort of trick or gimmick used to make rolling dice interesting, compelling, desired, or something else beyond a passive throw.

• In Cortex Plus (Smallville, Leverage), there’s the gathering of polyhedrals based on what you’re doing, reinforcing your actions & the fiction. And 1s on rolls trigger interesting situations.
• In Fate, the number of shifts you get beyond the target needed can be spent to achieve other effects. Notably in combat, they do Stress, but you can also use them to make your task happen faster — I love the Time chart — or improve quality or in some cases create additional aspects.
• In Dragon Age Tabletop RPG, the Dragon Die can give you Stunt Points to do additional effects, if between the three dice you roll you get doubles. (I really dig on this mechanic. It’s like critical successes taken to a new level.)
• In In Nomine, getting triple 1s means a “Divine Intervention” and triple 6s means “Infernal Intervention.” A crit success/failure that depends on what you’re doing.

A “card shtick” can stand in for a “die shitck,” as with Primetime Adventures.

The coin trick

Sometimes this is a long-standing economy, and other times it’s a way of tracking state and flow. Whatever it is, the handing back and forth of a token for whatever reason (even if it’s not physically done, just on paper), is what Josh & I call a “coin trick.”

• Fate’s Fate Points & Cortex Plus’ Plot Points are about a currency gained from complicating your current situation, spent to be more badass or power special effects later on. (This is probably the most common form of coin trick I’ve seen, though there are many variations on the theme. I particularly like Smallville’s Earns in Distinctions.)
• A Penny For My Thoughts is built upon a coin trick. The coins you have determine the length of your story at the moment, and the handing of it says which direction it will go.
• Primetime Adventures’ fan mail, coins spent by the Producer to fuel a high challenge, rewarded to the players by each other for moments they enjoy in the show, is a pretty potent one. A small-form game I was tinkering with a bit ago, Five Furious Fists of Tiamat, used fan mail. I was happy with the result.
• I waffle on whether I’d count interesting XP gain systems as a coin trick. But games like The Shadow of Yesterday/Solar System or Apocalypse World do have some neat ways of gaining XP that might count. There’s much less of a flow there, and more simple pure-motivation, but it’s a far cry from nothing. Right now, I would count them.

Games without coin tricks feel pretty dated to me. New ones that lack it have that sense of “going back to old school.” It’s also helped me understand why certain games bore me–there’s no coin trick to help drive my interest.

[Edit] Which is, as I realize after reading Daniel’s comment below, is the point. The coin tricks I see are those that push character & player motivations. The die shticks that I see are those that give depth the a moment of randomness, so that it’s not just a binary pass/fail at once.

Now, this is not a universal, “have this or your game sucks” philosophy. But it’s what Josh & I look for in our own designs and when unpacking games we’ve played. What do you look for?

- Ryan

[1] Which until today we’ve called a “die trick,” but I feel “die shtick” fits better.

Swashers:

As (many of you) know, I usually do not answer direct questions on S7S. Mostly, this is because I believe that once a book hits the wild, I should keep my trap shut except in cases of errata. I am VERY interested in what each and every group brings to the table, in answering questions in the text.

I hope paying attention to these questions makes me a better and clearer writer.

HOWEVER.

Over the past couple weeks, it has seemed that questions have been posed that never received answers.

I find this intolerable.

Thus, if you have posed a question and not received an answer, repost it in this thread, and I will assay a response. Note that I do not claim primacy for my particular answer to said questions; I'm just the guy who wrote the thing, other folks will make it live and breathe for their groups.

But I DO want to address issues that people have raised in some wise.

So, if you asked a question that never got an answer (satisfactory or at all), re-pose it in this thread, and I will give you my take. It may be messy or idiosyncratic, but it will be an answer.

Thank you.

Physically, the hardcover of S7S is a gorgeous 320 page book. The interior illustrations, all fine and useful (ranging from ships to characters) are all black and white, but the cover gleams and stands out. Fred Hicks of Evil Hat, who did the cover, did an excellent, appealing job here. Even if a book is not judged by its cover, this book, sitting in an FLGS screams "pick me up and check me out", even if the cover doesn't tell you what the game is in the same way.

Why you should go pick up a copy of S7S is simple: few games are as accessible, intuitive and richly devoted to players’ creative well-being as this one. Now I’m off to liberate a Crailese freighter of its most burdensome cargo!