This week's focus in Hammercalled development has been tying together bits and pieces and really getting things going a little faster and preparing to produce some of the quality of life things that are going to be useful (like character sheets and quick reference guides).

I want to quickly talk about a step that I took that should make characters significantly easier to play.

Previously, characters had seven Attributes (Combat Skill plus the standard six seen in pretty much every game), three Thresholds, three Resources, and an Initiative rating.

Now characters no longer have Thresholds. This is something of a lie; NPCs still have them, but they don't have other attributes (NPCs aren't supposed to roll, merely be rolled against, so this simplification saves the GM angst; anyone who prefers to can still make NPCs with a standard attribute set if they so desire).

This was a change I was contemplating making in Segira, then I realized that there wasn't a good reason not to go into it full-force. I have a saved copy of the old-school method, in case I change my mind, but here's a few of my thoughts on the matter.

Why Have Thresholds?

Thresholds serve as a quick reference that allows us to have a quick set of very general aptitudes. Because they were made as an average of two attribute scores, they protect characters who have a deficiency in certain areas (e.g. high Grace, low Awareness) from suffering the consequences of their actions.

Thresholds also give another number to be modified, and they were used in some of the later calculations.

Thresholds make more attributes important to all characters.

Thresholds have a nice comparison in the AC and Saving Throw ratings in other games, which are immediately clear as benefits to the players on the reference front.

Last but not least, thresholds allowed us to direct a lot of different things toward a common point of reference. Both Grace and Awareness help someone get to cover in a firefight, so rerouting to Mobility allows both to shine, in theory.

Why Remove Thresholds?

Thresholds are largely a duplication of existing information. The way that they work is such that they're just an extra step of math at character creation and advancement that can trip up novices and be a source of angst.

Thresholds merely add complexity to the system in the form of noise, without increasing any meaningful signal output.

Attributes need to be important in their own right, or else they should be modified or removed. Using thresholds to give attributes value is a cop-out and merely encourages people to invest points in something that'll sit unused forever.

Just because a lot of games have something doesn't make it valuable. D&D 5e did away with saves as discrete values because it didn't work very well. Those games rarely had one clear armor value; it was always AC, then a variety of situational ACs (flat-foot, touch, etc.) that really added more complexity than they removed.

Moving things to a common point of reference has unintended side-effects. It might be better to give the GM leeway; you can use Awareness or Grace for this. Likewise, we already have IAATs in the specialization system that provide bonuses in some situations, so someone with low Grace but "IAAT evade fire in combat." on their character sheet will still be able to find cover.

Wrapping Up

We removed some things from Hammercalled and made it run faster. I don't think this is too controversial, but it should make the process of making and improving characters less difficult while also allowing more focus on play as it should be.

Have a nice image by zonked, who has given us permission to use his (openly licensed) work in Hammercalled and other games:

I think we can all agree his work is amazing, and we're looking forward to having it in our games!