A tangent about conditions in TTRPGs and a formal definition.
While working on Part 3 of my hexcrawl series, I reflected upon certain aspects of Complications on the Tension Pool. They seemed harsh and in some regards, where not really meaningful choices. You either did something or suffered severely. So in most cases you did it and just interrupted what you were doing. They were just a nuisance without depth.
Then I remembered there's such a thing as conditions and I could use these to make things a bit more granular and exciting. Bringing back player agency.
But somehow I lacked a bit of concrete language on what does it mean when you get a condition. If I wanted to use it in Complications, I wanted some clear definition...
Formal Definition
A condition consists of
- Name
- Type - Static or Dynamic
- Scope - What or Who does it affect? Character, World, Object?
- Effect - What does it do?
- Removal (optional) - How to get rid of the condition?
A static condition, is either active or not. When it is active, it applies its effect to the scope. Otherwise it does nothing.
A dynamic condition, has a level. The effect of the condition changes depending on the level. The level can increase or decrease. The level can never fall below 0, when it reaches 0, the condition is considered as not being active.
A condition can be gained - if it is static, it is considered active; if it is dynamic, the level increases by 1. Similarly a condition can be lost - if it is static, it is considered inactive; if it is dynamic, the level decreases by 1.
Examples
That's the dry part out of the way. Let's do some examples, especially what these two types - Static and Dynamic - really mean.
Static Conditions
Most of your conditions will be static. These are your "classic" things, like Charmed, Poisoned, Prone, etc. The majority (if not all), are Character conditions.
In particular I like the following condition from Cairn RPG:
Deprived
Character - Static
At the beginning of each day, if you are deprived, gain Fatigue. When you rest at least 8 hours consecutively and eat food and drink water, loose Deprived if you are not Fatigued.
Conditions can add other conditions. So this opens up a bit of design space. As well we have a clear language, how adding conditions actually work.
The removal doesn't have to be necessarily be defined on the condition itself, but could be part of a spell as well - more on that later.
Dynamic Conditions
There's one dynamic condition, that you probably encountered already. In the 2014 D&D Player's Handbook, they define it as "special condition" - Exhaustion. For every level of Exhaustion you had a different effect (they simplified it - for the better - in the new edition).
OSR or old-school games have a similar concept, but name it slightly different.
Fatigue
Character - Dynamic
D&D - For every level of Fatigue gain Exhaustion
or Slot based Encumbrance - For every level of Fatigue loose an inventory slot
or Other - For every level of Fatigue reduce CON, if CON falls to 0, you die
When you rest at least 8 hours consecutively, loose Fatigue.
You can see, that this condition can take on different forms, depending on the underlying game system you are using. Note, that loosing means, that the level decreases by 1 - as per the definition - and not the full condition is gone. Of course this could also be adapted for each game system - some clear all the Fatigue for example after a long rest.
But you can take this even further and for example define the following condition.
Weather
World - Dynamic
| Level | Name | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Nice | No Effect. |
| 1 | Fair | No Effect. |
| 2 | Unpleasant | At the beginning of the day gain Fatigue. |
| 3 | Inclement | Gain Fatigue for each action. |
| 4 | Extreme | All actions become Reckless. Gain Fatigue for each action. |
| 5 | Catastrophic | No Travel possible. Seek immediate shelter. |
At the beginning of each day, roll a number of d6 according to the level. If you rolled more 1s than 6s, gain Weather. If you rolled more 6s than 1s, loose Weather.
What is nice here, that this opens up a lot of design space. For example the spell "Control Weather" now can mean, you gain or loose Weather, depending on the spell's level.
Same you could do for Fatigue (like "Restoration") as well.
Light as condition
You could think of Light as a dynamic condition. The level is it's duration, which could be hours or dungeon turns. Or even just abstract. In contrast to other conditions, it starts at a pre-set level and then only decreases.
How it decreases depends on what you chose as the representation of the level. If it is dungeon turns, you would loose Light every dungeon turn, naturally.
I prefer to make it a bit more abstract and loose it, whenever Expiration comes up on the Tension Pool. Torches start at level 2 and lanterns on level 4. If you are really reckless in a dungeon, it will burn out much faster, since there's a chance you let your torch fall down or something. It's just an abstraction on how well you tend to your light, not necessarily a specific time.
Dungeon Condition
A dungeon can also have a condition, that get's worse and worse over time. For example, the dungeon could be Unstable and actions of the players can increase the level until the max-level, that collapses the dungeon under itself. Each level gives some sort of effects that make it a) clear to the player that this is going to happen and b) makes it harder to progress in the dungeon (such as falling debris etc.)
Or there's a big monster in the centre of the dungeon that is asleep. When the max-level is reached, the monster is awoken and chases down the intruders.
Every time Locality on the Tension Pool is rolled, the level goes up.
In these cases, you could also think of conditions as some sort of progress clock. The GM might give you some leniency if you can decrease the level though, depending on clever actions. And you have different effects, depending on where you are on the clock - which normally clocks don't have.