Design Zombies - Part II

We're continuing the series about game mechanics that failed when they were first developed, failed in every game they were used in thereafter, and fail in games designed today. But they are still used for mysterious reasons beyond the understanding of mortal man.

Today we take a quick look at the Game Breaking Stat. I'm going to focus on one type related to damage, but the concept applies beyond that single area.

Let's use FFG's Only War as our standard bearer. Want to create a character for this dark vision of future war where life is cheap and death is close? What's that you say? You want to be an nearly invincible titan on the battlefield?

Grab a character sheet, use point allocation and throw as many points as you can into Toughness. You'll hit 40 points easy and maybe even more depending upon home world and other factors. Now select the Stormtrooper as your archetype and get five points of armor free. Build the right type of regiment with the right aptitudes and using your starting experience add another 10 points to Toughness.

Out of the gate, nothing special and you're already immune to anything less than max damage from many common weapons. Make attaining Best Quality armor (much easier than it sounds with the system) and gain a another point of Armor. Work towards the Armor Monger Talent for yet another point of armor. Should only take a handful of adventures.

Gratz! You are now immune to nearly all the common weapons your foes should be using. Las Rifle fire will roll off you like rain water. I've watched characters wade through the mass fire of 20 NPCs in the open just to pick up a piece of dropped gear- because he could.

Of course the GM may respond with giving every opposing grunt Heavy Weapons, Sniper weapons or the like. Sucks to be you I guess, but it sucks for the setting and campaign more and it has to suffer the intense violence of mainstream weapons being worthless.

As a side note, the Toughness stat is far more effective than armor, because armor is subject to penetration by the more potent (and less common) weapons. Toughness isn't.

This one error in the overwhelming effect of a Stat dates all the way back to 1st edition Warhammer way back in 1986 where the invincible dwarf (due to toughness and armor) became a legend in gaming circles.

It also dates back to the original Star Wars RPG in 1987 where a common Wookie could make himself all but immune to the typical Imperial Blasters.Yep, you could get through armored doors with those things ('lock the door and hope they don't have blasters'), but couldn't take down a wookie with one. Oh well.

How and why this is still happening is beyond me. Give any gamer who understands mechanics five minutes with the rulebook and he'll find this hole immediately. But it seems that a game designer will never see the problem, even if it's been around for decades.