Balance!

Rules-heavy games can become a bit much for me over the long haul.

I would not really consider D&D 5e rules-heavy at lower levels. But once you get past, say, 12th or 13th level, there are so many little nuances, abilities, feats, reactions, combat options, and special cases that I start having less fun, a lot less.

I spend less time thinking about the story developing at the table and more time juggling rules and... and... and...

On the other end, if a game is too rules-light, I can get bored after five sessions because there just isn't enough there for me to dig into.

I like something in the middle.

Enough rules to give me interesting choices.

Not so many that the rules become the game.

That is one of the things I have been trying to nail down while developing and play-testing the crap out of Samhain: Hearth & Horror RPG.

Combat Needed Something

Most recently, I have been hammering on combat.

I had established a normal Target Number (TN) of around 13 on a d20 roll.

Without getting into all the math, I started noticing something during repeated play-testing:

Both sides missed a lot.

A few misses are fine.

Several rounds of:

Miss.

Miss.

Miss.

Miss.

That gets boring.

So I had a few options.

I could simply lower the TN.

Or I could give the player characters a little more capability as they advance.

That led to Expertise.

At 3rd level, a character chooses an area of Expertise such as:

Melee. Ranged. Spells. Sneaking.

When acting within that Expertise, they gain Determination, which is Samhain's version of Advantage.

Simple.

One choice.

Easy to remember.

And it gives the character a noticeable bump in something they have become particularly good at doing.

Perfect.

Until I play-tested it.

Well... Now the Monsters Are Getting DESTROYED!

Once the PCs started gaining Determination in their specialties, combat moved faster.

Great.

Except now the monsters were getting their asses handed to them rather quickly.

So the pendulum had moved too far in the other direction.

I could have started adding more modifiers, special defenses, reactions, resistance mechanics, or other little rules.

But that is exactly the kind of rules creep I am trying to avoid.

Instead, I went with something much simpler.

Give more dangerous Denizens more actions per round.

Right now it works like this:

• Threat 1-2: 1 Action per round
• Threat 3-4: 2 Actions per round
• Threat 5: 3 Actions per round

That's it.

A weak creature remains simple.

A serious monster gets more opportunities to act.

And the truly terrifying things in the Vale get to do several things during a round.

That makes them feel dangerous without requiring a page of special rules.

Turn the Dial, Don't Rebuild the Machine

That is really where I want Samhain to live.

Not superheroic.

Not disposable-character meat grinder.

Somewhere in the middle.

The PCs should feel capable.

They should become better at the things they do.

But the Samhain Vale should still be deadly as fuck.

If the characters encounter something powerful, I want the players to feel the difference immediately.

A Threat 1 creature taking one action feels very different from a Threat 5 nightmare suddenly taking three.

And I can accomplish that without adding another subsystem.

That is important to me.

Sometimes fixing a game does not mean adding more rules.

Sometimes it just means turning one dial.

Play-Test. Adjust. Play-Test Again.

All of these changes, along with quite a bit more Harvest Master advice, have now been added to Samhain: Hearth & Horror RPG.

This Tuesday, September 15th, I will be releasing the newest play-test update through the Agranak Studios Patreon.

This round will open the play-test to the Red Hand Tier and above.

I am really excited about this version because it is starting to feel right.

Not finished.

Right.

More play-testing may tell me I need to scale something back.

Maybe I need to move the dial slightly higher.

Maybe something that looks great on paper falls apart after ten sessions.

That is why I am doing this.

Build it.

Play it.

Break it.

Fix it.

Play it again.

Every time we go through that process, Samhain: Hearth & Horror gets a little closer to the game I actually want to sit down and play.

And right now?

That feels like progress.