All members of the living dead are Immune to Mental Spells, are Susceptible to Holy Water, and have an Aversion to Sunlight.
Not only does this technique partition the resistances and vulnerabilities of undeath from the description of Zombie, it also makes the rule conveniently available for the description of other undead creatures. If we provide many such descriptions, this separation will quickly save space and, at the same time, make the game design more obvious to the reader. Finally, if we later decide to make all undead afraid of holy symbols, we can easily make this change to all undead by modifying the common rule.
Structural Patterns (Modularity) 159
Known Uses
Dungeons & Dragons v.3.5 has a section in the Dungeon Master’s Guide called the
“Condition Summary.” This section is essentially a list of definitions for various forms of trauma that can affect a character. Among these are rules of “Blinded,” “Deafened,”
“Dying,” “Exhausted,” “Sickened,” “Stunned,” etc. By separating these out, these various afflictions can be used throughout the game in a clear, succinct way.
Warhammer Fantasy Role Play has descriptions of many monsters in their Bestiary.
In these descriptions, monsters have various forms of attack. Rather than endlessly repeat them for every monster description, the game has categories of various attack forms. Some of these are “claw,” “kick/stomp,” “gore,” “constriction,” etc. In the monster descriptions, these words are italicized to indicate that the words have special meaning. The definitions of the terms are split out into a separate section to which all monster descriptions refer. By doing this, the definitions can be clearly spelled out without needless repetition.
Priority Grid
Intent
Provide a means to design a game tool (such as a character) by forcing players to irrevocably prioritize various important concerns.
Also Known As
Not applicable
Related Patterns
Class, Gift, Resource, Skill, Trait
Motivation
A Priority Grid allows a game designer to give players a simple means of designing game tools by trading-off features against one another based on their priorities. It is called a “grid” because the options are usually presented in a table format. Commonly, priorities are listed on the rows (such as A, B, C, etc.) and the features are listed in columns. (Obviously, the rows and columns may be interchanged without changing the pattern.) The player must select a limited number of A priorities, a limited number of B priorities, and so on until all priorities are expended. The primary advantage the
Priority Grid has over other techniques (such as allotting players a resource to spend on features) is that a Priority Grid provides a means to force players to make extreme choices and it forces them to pick at least one choice at each Priority level. The Priority A choices may be far superior to the Priority B choices. The Priority B’s may be far superior to the Priority C’s, etc. For example, if a Priority Grid is used during character generation in a game where wealth and physical prowess are both valued (along with other concerns), such a system can make the choice of playing a crippled beggar equally as attractive as playing a warrior king, depending on the other trade-offs provided by the Priority Grid and the players’ goals.
Applicability
Use the Priority Grid pattern when you:
1) Want to allow players to design their own game tools (such as characters, traits, classes, etc.) but force them to make extreme choices in doing so.
2) Have a fairly small number of features that you want players to trade-off.
3) The features to be traded-off can each be reasonably partitioned into a number of priority levels whose number does not exceed that of the number of features.
4) Each feature has an important game role so that player choices are not automatic.
Structural Patterns (Priority Grid) 161
Example Structure
Consequences
The Priority Grid Pattern provides a simple way to allow players to trade-off concerns in designing a game tool and allows the system to be set up in such a way that players must make extreme choices in one or more features. Supposedly, this will make the game tools more fun to use in game play. The pattern accomplishes this goal at the expense of some flexibility, however, since the degree to which a priority selection augments the game tool depends on a pre-defined table.
Implementation Concerns
By its nature, a Priority Grid makes it impossible for a player to select all of the Priority A choices in designing his game tool. This can be a problem if players believe that doing so is reasonable. Some text acknowledging this limitation and expressing the desire to have players make important choices can go a long way toward alleviating this concern.
If you decide to create a Priority Grid where the number of features exceeds the number of priorities, you will need to allow players to select multiple choices from one or more priority levels. For example, a Priority Grid with 5 Priority levels (I, II, III, IV, and V) and 8 features can work by giving players one each of Priorities I, II, III, and IV and four of Priority level V.
Creating a “balanced” Priority Grid, where no single option is the obvious choice in most cases, can be tricky. This is especially true if the grid contains some detrimental options that can be alleviated or overcome through play while others cannot. For example, suppose a Priority Grid was created to help design Super-Hero type
Royalty?
characters. One Priority A option may be a one-time chance to gain an extra “super-power” of some sort while another may be to start out with $1 Million. If super-powers cannot thereafter be obtained in play but wealth can be accumulated, then the super-power will likely be seen as more valuable than the financial incentive, no matter how large it is. Rather than a direct sum of money, suppose the grid provided a “Financial Savvy” rating that determined how quickly a character could accumulate money and that, once set, it never changed (or changed very little). Assuming money has sufficient importance in the game, an appropriately high “Financial Savvy” rating could easily be seen as being equal to a super-power.
Samples
In a game where players can design their own magical spell abilities, the following table might be an example of a Priority Grid where players select one each of Priorities A, B, and C and two of Priority D.
Priority Effect(s) Duration Affected Area Action Cost
Category I Effects: Puts target(s) to sleep, Blinds target(s), Levitates target(s) into air, Ignites target(s), Gives target(s) +5 roll bonus, Gives target(s) -5 roll penalty, Gives target(s) +5 armor bonus…
Category II Effects: Slows target(s) to ½ speed, Doubles target(s) speed, Gives target(s) +3 roll bonus, Gives target(s) -3 roll penalty, Gives target(s) +3 armor bonus…
Category III Effects: Trips target(s), Extinguishes all fires on target(s), Gives target(s) +2 roll bonus, Gives target(s) -2 roll penalty, Gives target(s) +2 armor bonus…
Category IV Effects: Warms target(s) against naturally occurring cold, Cools target(s)