Random Ape Encounter

Bad Idea: Yahtzee-style Platforming Mechanics for RPGs

There was a brief discussion on the wonderful Prismatic Waystation Discord a handful of days ago about the difficulty (or impossibility) of adapting the minutiae of the platforming video game experience in a tabletop roleplaying game. Now that conversation was a couple of days ago, basically equivalent to a month in my rotted zoomer brain, and I'm trying to sketch this one out on my lunch break so I have little time to check back, but I'm sure the consensus was that regardless of how well you could do it, it would be a pretty bad idea.

I fucking love bad ideas.

The Procedure of a Jump.

When you make a risky jump in a platforming game, there's a step-by-step process that happens within fractions of a second:

  1. You size up the jump. How far does it look? How many Marios wide, how many inches on your screen? Can you make this? What do you think it will take?
  2. You jump. In physics-based platformers like your Marios or Sonics, this would require a running start. In something more responsive like a Mega Man or Celeste, you just do it.
  3. You adjust. Unless this is early Castlevania or one of those Jump King-esque rage-games where you just watch in agony as you watch Mr. Belmont plummet to his death, you have some chance to correct yourself. You damn-near put a bruise in your finger like pushing left harder has some fleeting chance of making your hedgehog slow down more, you rock your thumb back-and-forth to make your mountain-climber drop on those exact pixels that you want (and you also beg me to use some proper nouns again, I'm sorry!)

As an aside, if you were enough of a weirdo to enjoy that write-up, I highly recommend the book Pilgrim in the Microworld by David Sudnow, the greatest piece of games criticism I've ever read, and it's about Breakout for the Atari. It will change how you look at video games forever and for the better.

The Ill-Advised Translation

Breaking the process of platforming into this three-step procedure gave me a pretty easy-to-devise translation, heavily inspired by Ben Torell from Gordian Blade's Silver Fish fishing minigame.

Stats

This minigame uses 2 unique stats: Velocity and Control.

Procedure

  1. The GM decides a target range, measured in feet. Longer jumps are represented by higher numbers, and wider platforms are represented by wider ranges. For example, a 20-30 foot target range is an easy long-jump to make if you have very good Velocity, and while a 4-5 foot target range can be made by anyone, its a very precise jump.
  2. The player decides on the amount of Velocity they wish to use for the jump, and rolls 1d6 for each velocity. If Mario chooses to use 3 Velocity, he rolls 3d6.
  3. The player tallies up the result. If Mario rolled a 3, 3, and a 2, he's on track to jump 8 feet.
  4. The player can choose to reroll any number of dice, Yahtzee-style. The player can do this a number of times equal to their Control. Let's say Mario's target number is 10-15. He chooses to keep one of the threes as insurance, but rerolls the other two dice. A 5 and a 1 leave him at 9; still not quite there! Thankfully, he has a Control of 2, so he is able to reroll that lowest dice for an all-but-guaranteed victory!

Possible items, skills and variables:

The GM should feel free to grant bonuses for fictional positioning whenever applicable; a running start could increase Velocity, ass well as good item use (a rope swing, or a giant spring?). Here are a few ideas, which can be granted by items or by spending resources like Fatigue or even HP:

Please, please tell me if you actually run this for your table, because I sure as hell won't be. Oh shit, my lunch break ended 5 minutes ago...