Daughters & Dragons - A surprisingly deep emoji-based RPG!

 

Image obviously created with OpenAI's Dall-E...

As a father of a 3 and a half years old girl, I should be quite far still from glorious RPG sessions with her and the like, but it turns out she is fascinated by dice of any kind, which of course she found plenty of, among my things.

This of course doesn't mean she is ready to play D&D, and in addition, as I made clear in my latest post, I came to really dislike the current edition of D&D, finding that it took the magic out of the game, by putting magic everywhere in it, other than adhering to game design principles I absolutely despise.

So I set out on a quest that used to be quite common for my young self, but hadn't done in a good while: creating an RPG!

My objectives were many, and often at odds with each other:

• A very accessible game, that can be understood by a 4 year old or so.
• A game that is more immersive and can simulate realistic situation better than D&D 5e: "gamist" abstractions will still be there, but should make a lot of logical sense.
• A game that is more fun to play than D&D 5e: rolls should be with many dice, and randomness should play a role, but not as much as in D&D.

For the first point, I decided early on that I would have replaced basically any written word with emojis: I've been using emojis in game design and even in coding for a long time, and I quickly found out that entire rulings can be written with 4 emojis, making them understandable to kids (she understands the icons associated to actions in videogames already, and those are basically custom emojis.)

But obviously the second objective is at odds with the rest, and I admit it was mainly my pet peeve, more than anything.

But since I'd have to play this with my daughter, I'd like something a bit educational while we're at it, and gamist abstractions are not educational at all.

Characters should get tired, and should have limits to what they can do that depend on their characteristics, not arbitrary numbers.

The game should teach that if you want to do more things of a certain kind, you should train to do so, and training to do so might mean not training to do something else.

Anyways, here is how I proceeded in this weird quest.

From Legend Of The 5 Rings, to a Legend of 4 Animals

I made no mystery in the past of my fascination with this game, and in particular its latest edition.

It's the only game that did away with physical abilities, in favor of abstract "rings" that determine very different aspects of characters, physical, social, mystical, and mental, by thematically grouping them together.

Now, if you paid attention to my remarks about "gamist VS simulationist" systems above, you will think this should stay far away from my new game, to make it simulationist and educational... And I agree: as it is, it's too abstract to be understood by kids, and has very little connection to the real world.

But what it does well, is to give a certain "spirit" to characters, and a way to "modulate" rolls, so one can do the same action with different approaches, and sometimes overcome physical or mental limitations, thanks to what comes down to character/personality, which I think is quite a good depiction of what happens in the real world.

So here is my solution to have this nice feature and at the same time staying grounded to a simulation of the real world that can make sense:

• Have the 6 ability scores, still, although modified to be more identifiable by a kid.
• Have 4 (5 is too many) "spirits" that can intersect with abilities to add nuance to the resulting actions.

This could create 24 intersections of abilities and spirits, but I didn't want things to be so needlessly symmetrical and clear-cut, because then if you miss the right ability or the right spirit, you can't do anything in some situations.

So here comes the next adaptation to solve this.

Rolling two abilities at a time is more fun, so let's couple them up!

Coupling abilities is something I've seen in a couple of little-known RPGs, and I always loved.

If every possible action always involves two abilities, it's first of all more probable that characters will be able to attempt everything without feeling it's a plain coin toss, and in addition it sets the system up for a lot of dice tricks: use only the best ability of two, the worst, do something when numbers match, do something when you "crit" with both, crit with one, and so on.

Still, I didn't want all abilities to couple up with all the rest: it's a ton of couplings.

So I resorted to a system that couples only what makes sense in the game world.

In addition, some couples determine not only rolls, but the energy pools associated to those roles, and instead of numbers associated to abilities, we get dice, so it's more immediate for a kid than a bonus to be added to another die.

Here is what I came up with:

The geometrical symbols correspond to the type of dice, and the "Energies" in the middle are shared by the abilities to their left and right, and calculated with admittedly slightly complex formulas, although very easy to put in emojis: "🔝🅱️" (which if you're not on Windows might appear different than in the pic, but it's the formula for Stamina) means the top value of the worst dice of the couple. So Vitality, 6.

In Spirit we just sum them all. And Focus instead is half of the best die, which in this case doesn't make any difference, and is just 2.

You might think this is way too complicated, but if you noticed, Energy is symbolized by coins, and that's how we play this with my daughter: she gets coins of different colors, and spends them. No need to count basically, as the totals are to be counted only once and stay like that until the abilities change.

The ability couples

Without further ado, here is how abilities are coupled to determine skills and more. I called them Aspects, but it's not a final definition, and it doesn't even really matter, since these are nearly never used directly.

As you can see, Wisdom became the coupling of Mind and Senses, and is separate from Awareness, which is Charisma and Senses. The former is more intellectual, the second more social/spiritual.

If you noticed, they are color-coded both in their title, and in the background of the emojis.

This ties them to the types of energy needed to perform (hefty) tasks with each, although it's not perfect, since I didn't want to use too many colors.

Therefore, even if there is overlap, you can consider Endurance and Movement "Bodily", tied mainly to Stamina, Instinct and Technique more "Mindful", tied mainly to Focus, Wisdom and Brilliance more "Intellectual", tied to both Focus and Spirit, and finally Awareness and Power more deeply Spiritual/Primal.

As I said, there is no symmetry but that's ok. If you noticed, resources have widely different quantities, and that's for a reason: Focus is not something you ever actually run out of: it's just that when you don't have it, you have to invest some seconds into refocusing, meaning that it's mainly to avoid characters doing too many difficult things in a row. Spirit instead is plentiful, and it should be because it will replace Spell Slots, it's basically Mana. Requires sleeping to recover. Stamina is in-between, and requires short rests and food to replenish, unless it goes negative (something other resources can't do) and then it can require days to fully recover.

The second color-coding divides the Passive (green-blue) from Active (peach orange) Aspects, to continue showing what is more internal, and what external, like for Abilities.

Now, where do the 4 Animal Spirits figure in all this? Well, surprisingly or not, they modulate these 8 Aspects into what are basically skills, attacks, spellcasting, and almost everything else!

But let's talk the Animal Spirits.

A System 4 Animals

Early-on I started calling this whole system 4Animals, because indeed, as I think it's typical for kids, my daughter is quite used to play make-believe, impersonating animals of various kinds, and this system is aimed at her. :)

However, I wanted to stay very close to the Legend Of The 5 Rings system, when it comes to what these "elements" (traditionally Air, Fire, Water, and Earth, with the addition of Void, in that game) do and control.

After all, that's an already balanced system, so there was no need to change it too much.

The only thing I wanted to change was getting rid of the Void ring, which would have been very hard to represent with an animal, and basically distributing its stuff among others, giving them also more flesh.

Therefore, I came up with the following. (Never mind the weird shapes, they will make sense later.)

The Eagle stays very close to what the Air element does in L5R, which might be, surprisingly for who doesn't know that game, a lot of "bad" stuff, so much I'd have used a Crow, if the emoji existed. They are the finesse types, which means they are great at lying, tricking, and sneaking, but in a positive light they can be precise, detail-oriented, and elegant.

In D&D-style games, this would be the spirit animal of most Rogues/Experts, many Spellcasters, and even some Fighters.

The Lion stayed also very close to the original Fire element of L5R, being the most "aggressive", but I also made it the most "regal" of the bunch, being the one for natural leaders. It also associates Fire with Creation, so it's also one of the best spirits for crafters, especially tinkerers/inventors.

In D&D-style games, it's Paladins, Sorcerers, Barbarians, and Fighters.

The "Seahorse" (or Unicorn) is sea- because it obviously replaced the Water element of L5R (which would not be out of place for a Unicorn anyway) and it gained some stuff from the Void element as well, becoming one of the most mystical of the bunch. They can be fickle and shallow, or deep and powerful, like water. It's the most social of the 4, and is all about empathy and adaptability.

In D&D, it's Bards, but also some Wizards, Warlocks, Clerics, & Rogues.

The Dragon is the most different from the source element of Earth, because it's the one that got the most from the element of Void. It's even more mystical than the Seahorse/Unicorn, but also strangely more grounded/practical. It's the most static/passive of the bunch, controlling stuff like endurance, calculation, knowledge, and faith. A bit all over the place, but kind of representing a "hermit" spirit.

In D&D it's Druids, some Paladins, Rangers, Clerics, and Shamans.

As you can see, most classes could be dominated by more than one spirit animal, and this is by design: the spirit animal is not a way to classify things, but a way to modulate/modify them.

Now, if I would have to make a version of all Aspects for every Animal something with in-game meaning/use, that would be a ton of stuff: 32 "things" to be precise.

So I decided once again to avoid the temptation of symmetry at all costs, making sure that the 4 Animals would be associated with all the major groupings, but not all aspects.

This is what I came up with:

As you can see, there's many holes all over the place, but it's "a feature, not a bug", because at the end of the day, too many choices hurt the enjoyment of games, even if they can be nice for geeks like me.

There's many icons there that I didn't explain, and some of you might easily guess, but the important thing is that this actually is almost all you need to play!

Again, those with orangish backgrounds are active (Skills) and those with light-bluish background are passive (Traits) although there are special cases, in which this can change.

For example, each Spirit Animal has a so-called "Hybrid Skill", which is the "skill-ification" of a trait.

🦅 - 🔎 Attention -> 🔮 Interpret 

🦁 - ❤️‍🔥 Temper -> 👊 Rush

🦄 - 🤩 Insight -> 🥰 Charm

🐲 - 😇 Belief -> 🙏 Invoke

Yes, Traits are nouns, and Skills are verbs for no good reason other than being a cool difference...

And yes, many of these things are extremely tied to stuff like attacking and spell-casting, but never only that.

Basically the Bodily Traits and Skills are all related to Combat, but also Athletics, Movement, Resistance, etc, while all the Social & Spiritual are, as the name implies, both social and spiritual, able to generate magic, but also sway people, which is another parallel with the real-world I like...

Wherever you see the star ⭐, it means you could learn to do magic with them, and wherever you see the swords ⚔️, it means you could learn (or sometimes automatically know) how to fight with them.

I won't explain everything else, or the post will become a manual. :)

But now you might notice that the system for rolling is in place: every roll with involve two abilities (which you can see repeated here, on the left of the big skill icons), and a spirit animal, and each of these means one die from d4 to d12. (No d20s anymore for me!) The only exception is that at 1st level, usually no character should have all 4 spirit animals: it's ok to never have one for the whole game, and it's usually important to focus on 2, and have a backup third one, although of course having all 4 is a lot of versatility.

So the sample character shown before, with 💪💎, 🩸🔷, and 🦁💎 would roll a hefty 2d10 and 1d8 for attacks made with Rush 👊, which is kind of the go-to attack skill, consuming Stamina only. (the others all involve Focus, meaning you eventually have to refocus to use them).

Also note how this is roughly equivalent to 1d20+6, which is not far from what a 4th level D&D character can do, and was indeed the target for this sample character, which is 3rd level.

Speaking of levels though, that is something else I wanted to revolutionize, to finally have the concept of "separate pillars of characters growing in parallel".

Class levels are not enough

You may have guessed it: the idea is Race (or Species, whatever) and Background should matter more in games, and to do so, they can level up in parallel with the class!

This could seem to add complexity, but it actually takes it out, because it means each of these will need less than the canonical 20 levels to feel interesting, since you will have three different level-up experiences.

I don't have the full system in place, but the idea is the following:

Race: special abilities and the levelling up of actual abilities come from here. HPs, too!

Class: this controls mainly combat and magic, with a few extra skills and spirit animal connection thrown in for fun and differentiation.

Background: this is the realm of skills and social stuff, and you can think of the levelling of it a bit as a renown tracker. It eventually leads to having one's own property/stronghold, and sometimes can even grant some combat or magic to mix in with the class.

Basically characters would be always multiclass, with Race and Background being mini-classes associated to the main class.

At the moment, I aim at 5 levels of each system, which I'd eventually expand to 10, but nothing more, because it's already interesting to have 3x 5 levels to explore.

So how do classes look in this weird system?

Well, it's pretty simple, they are so easy to create too:

Yes, a bit simplistic, but remember it's supposed to be for small kids. It's actually quite complicated for the target audience, and definitely requires a more adult guidance.

But you might be able to interpret the meaning of all the "emoji formulas". Smite Evil for example, adds attack/damage (they are one and the same, you might see why in a later post) vs "monsters" or "evil ones", equal to the "Skill die" associated to Temper (something Paladins and Bards have.)
Bardic Inspiration is basically the same, but that die will be given to one ally. 

The emojis seem to portray this quite simply, IMO, but do comment if it's not clear to you: can't playtest this with many people!

Also, might not be clear but at 1st level you get the Skills, Traits, and Magic stuff, which will result in 7 Skills/Traits for Bards, and only 4/5 for Paladins, as expected.
Note that this means certain usages of skills/traits, not all: they are learned separately, so these numbers should more or less be halved compared to the skills of D&D, and this is compensated by Race and Background giving more of them.

More to come!

This is of course far from an overview of the whole system: I have a full-fledged magic system connected to this, which allows for nearly on-the-fly spell creation, and systems that add synergy bonuses depending on combinations of various things, allowing for each character to be widely different from any other, but hopefully without rules-bloating, since everything is always only a result of combinations of few elements, instead of addition of new ones.

It's incredibly satisfying to make this stuff, so you will surely see more.

In the meantime, leave comments without mercy. :)

Cheers!