TTRPG Tuesday: Three Means Of Resolving

Hi it’s another TTRPG Tuesday! First of the year.  Let’s get right into it.

Saw a challenge on Twitter to make some resolution mechanics.  I can do those! Here we go:

1. Hand to Hand The player performing the action and the person running the game or otherwise opposing the action both put their dominant fists toward one another, bounce them three times to get a rhythm, and reveal a number with their fingers, 0-5.  Sum the two numbers, and if the number is greater than 5, subtract six, so that the final number is always between 0 and 5.  On a 0, the action fails catastrophically, on a 1-2 it fails, 3-4 it succeeds, on a 5 it succeeds spectacularly.  The player taking the action starts the game with all five fingers up on their non-dominant hand; after an attempt, they may lower fingers on that hand to add to the sum of the attempt.
   Ex. Alice attempts to seduce Cat’s character over to the coup conspirators.  They put their dominant hands together (right for Alice, left for Cat) and throw out numbers: Alice throws out 2 fingers, Cat throws out 1.  Since the sum is less than 5, no subtraction occurs, and the final number is 3, which is a success for Alice, and Cat’s character joins the conspirators.  She can lower fingers on her nondominant (left for Alice) hand to bump the success up to a spectacular success, but she decides she doesn’t need it, and play continues.

2. How Much Did It Mean To You? A player takes ten slips of paper, writes “Succeed” on six slips and “Fail” on four, then arranges them in the order of their choice, places them in an envelope with the blank sides facing the opener of the envelope, then writes their name and the date on the envelope.  After one month, the envelope may be used for a game session, with the envelope being unsealed and slips drawn from a face-down pile whenever actions are attempted.  If the player can remember the order of the slips of paper, it may be used to their advantage, otherwise, their luck is owed to their past selves.
   Ex. Bob and Cat each take an envelope with six Successes and four Failures.  Bob puts them in an order that he thinks will make for an interesting arc, then seals and labels his envelope.  Cat evenly distributes their slips in a predictable pattern and seals and labels their envelope.  The next month, they use their envelopes for a game session.  Bob does not remember the order of his slips but is pleasantly surprised.  Cat remembers that there was a pattern, and successfully guesses it, and their plans pay off.

3. We Live In A Society When a big action is attempted, each player at the table writes down an outcome on a slip of paper, which is added to a pot.  Two slips are drawn, and then the players vote on which of the two should occur.  The player whose character is attempting the action gets only a half vote, which can act as a tiebreaker if necessary.
   Ex. Alice states that her character is attempting to channel the radiant song.  Alice writes on a slip of paper “The song shatters me but is purified”, Bob writes “It does nothing”, and Cat writes “The song flows through me and is amplified”.  All three are added to a pot, and “The song shatters me but is purified” and “The song flows through me and is amplified” are drawn.  Between the two of them, Bob votes for the former, and Alice and Cat vote for the latter.  Since the votes are at one to one and a half, the latter, “The song flows through me and is amplified” is what happens to Alice’s character.

K, that’s three, I like the number three and I’m tired and need to get to bed because I have hockey in the morning.  Happy new year, til next time!