I'm a long-time player of roleplaying games, dating back to about 1983 when I first played
Dungeons & Dragons. I fell out of the practice during college—I didn't find a group that I gelled with and didn't want to spend all my free-time hours in a library group study room—and didn't really play much between 1992 or 1993 and about 2010, when I fell back into the hobby during the days of D&D 4E with a fervor and a passion. I participated in and ran weekly public play sessions at
Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica and
It's GameTime, got my son interested in the game when he was about 7 or so, enjoyed the launch of D&D 5E, and joined and ran games with friends and strangers alike in the Los Angeles area, even going to my first RPG cons. I met some of my best friends from my time in LA while rolling dice.
After my return to the tables, I also participated in a couple of RPG-related amateur press associations, including
Alarums & Excursions and
Ever & Anon. (You can find many of my fanzine contrubutions
here.) So I've been aware of events such as
RPGaDAY, even if I haven't participated. This year's instance started Aug. 1, which I missed, but let's see what comes of jumping in a week late. I can't promise to write something in response to a prompt every day, but I'll do my best to make my way through the calendar of prompts even if I spill out of August.
***
Day Eight: Resolve—or, "A moment when a character kept or broke their resolve?"
It struck me recently that even though I've been DM'ing games dating back to the mid-1980s, I haven't always consistently utilized the mechanic of Morale—especially when I was younger. So that's the first thing that came to mind when thinking about resolve. Morale is effectively the enemies' measure of resolve during combat. While players decide whether their characters fight or flee in a given combat encounter, the Morale check is the DM's way to determine whether enemies—or retainers—stick to their guns, or their swords and spears, as the case may be.
In BECMI, the mechanic—presented as optional—is pretty straightforward: The DM tests Morale when a creature (with a Morale of 3-11) is first hit or when it gets down to 25 percent of its hit points. When facing a group of enemies, the group's Morale is tested when the first death occurs in a given combat and when half of the enemies are no longer "free to act." (i.e., dead or otherwise restrained)
Some people
don't like Morale checks.
Some do. And the idea continues even to more recent editions of D&D as the
Will saving throw, the Morale check's modern implementation. In some recent
OSR (Old School Revival or Renaissance) games such as
Swords & Wizardry, Morale checks might not come into play.
I quite like Morale. For the most part that's because, in older game systems, combat encounters aren't necessarily balanced or optimized for the level of the characters. (Characters really should run away, hide, or avoide combat more than they do.) Applying some degree of chance to whether enemies resolve to see a given combat through to its logical conclusion introduces a little bit of what I might consider natural balance. That can be helpful if players try to bite off more than their characters and parties can chew. It also makes the enemies a little less automatic, their behavior less able to be assumed. We mustn't treat it as rote that enemies will always engage in combat, or that they'll always stay once engaged in combat.
So, hurrah for the Morale check. What are some other ways that players and DMs can exhibit or test resolve? In addition to the Will saving throw mentioned above, some game systems include character skills such as Resolve or Willpower.
The idea also comes into play when considering alignment, which I also think is often under- or misutilized. In many cases, alignment is something that players set and then forget—it doesn't really come into play except, perhaps, in the case of clerics, and most players I've shared time and table with don't really apply their characters' alignments as a roleplaying guide or aid.
Such behavior comes at a risk. In BECMI D&D, "Alignment Changes" are addressed explicitly in the Dungeon Masters Rulebook:
Sometimes a player forgets (or ignores) the alignment of his character, and plays the character incorrectly. You should talk privately with the player about the problem, and encourage the proper play of alignment. ... If the problem continues after you have warned the player more than once, you may tell the player to change the alignment of the character to the different alignment actually being played. A penalty may be applied at this time, such as the loss of one level of experience, a valued item, etc. (p. 14)
That's interesting to me. When selecting a character's alignment, how committed to roleplaying that alignment are you as a player? The same question could be asked about other aspects of a character such as the personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws of D&D 5E. Many players treat those aspects as fluff or roleplaying aids, but they offer another opportunity to exhibit resolve. What kind of rewards and penalties could come into play for successful commitment to those aspects of a character? Should they involve any kind of mechanical boon or bane? Perhaps rewarding inspiration is enough.
It's not quite the same thing, but various game systems kind of address this through mechanics such as Shadow Points (The One Ring), sanity rolls (Call of Cthulhu), and fear checks. Even though some people don't like fear checks, such tests of resolve seem to be another way to apply Morale checks to characters, who might not always be smart enough to get out of a situation while the getting's good.
And finally, let's consider the role of the stories we tell in roleplaying games. In many games, a campaign or session is built on the acceptance of an assignment, a quest, or some other form of adventure hook. Ideally, and perhaps in most cases, players, characters, and parties see such responsibilities through to completion. What if you can't, won't, or don't? If a party isn't resolute enough to see an assignment through to its end (say, the rescue of a tailor's daughter, as in the Swords & Wizardry game in which I'm currently active), what happens? Is there a cost or impact to failure or abandonment? (Other than death, that is.)
That might depend on whether the characters own up to their failure or abandonment—do they return to their patron to inform them, or do they just avoid that town for a period of time, hoping that people will forget?—but other mechanics could also come into play to reward the application of resolve—narratively. Consider reputation, fame, and honor mechanics such as those in GURPS Social Engineering, HackMaster, and HERO. This Mindstorm article offers additional examples—and its own approach.
There seem to be multiple ways that the games we play already support and reward resolve exhibited by our characters. There also seem to be additional ways that players could consider applying resolve—in terms of roleplaying and character development—and that DMs and GMs could bring to bear while guiding their parties through a game's world and the stories it propels. Similar to how I'm newly committed to Morale checks when appropriate, I hereby resolve to continue to explore the steadfast application of alignment, personality traits, and reputation.
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