RPGFeed

Mitigating matches in large player count Ironsworn games.

For the past few months, I’ve been running a guided Ironsworm campaign. Conventional wisdom (and the game’s author) says the game is best for solo, co-op, or small group play. But I wanted to run a game, don’t want to learn a new system, and 6 people decided to show up. It’s been a fantastic time.

The cracks are beginning to show, primarily in player progression and in the frequency of matches. In Ironsworn, the Action Roll is a 1d6 + bonuses (your Action Score) versus 2d10 (the Challenge Dice). You compare the Action Score to each Challenge Die individually. If your Action Score beats both, it’s a full, clean success. If it beats only one, it’s a success with complications. If it beats neither, it’s a hard fail and you must pay the price, a special move that helps you decide the outcome of the failure.

There’s also a rule for matches on the Challenge Dice. If the d10s match each other, it’s supposed to heighten the drama, raise the stakes, reveal an opportunity, or something along those lines. It’s a great mechanic, and is totally optional, but our table has enjoyed having it be in play.

The issue is that matches on a 2d10 roll happen about 10% of the time. This is fine when one or two people are rolling occasionally, but when you’re dealing with situations where 6 people are rolling multiple times per session, these matches are coming up a lot.

So I’ve devised a simple method to handle matches rather than just eliminating the mechanic.

The Floodgate Method

To begin with, establish two progress tracks, one negative and one positive.

  • Whenever any player rolls a match on a miss, fill in a box (4 ticks) on the negative track.
  • Whenever any player rolls a match on a hit, fill in a box (4 ticks) on the positive track.
  • Once at least one box is filled in, you’ll make a Progress Roll against the appropriate track each time a match is rolled, before ticking a box.
  • If the Progress Roll succeeds – then you trigger the positive or negative match in the fiction.
  • Once the effect is triggered, clear the appropriate progress track.

This gives us a sort of building tension clock that allows us to cumulate matches into a final result. I think this does a few things:

  1. It gives the guide (me!) some time between matches.
  2. It reduces the frequency of having matches actually result in changes in the narrative.
  3. By way of reducing frequency, it makes the narrative results of the matches “overflowing the floodgate” much more impactful. I’m worried my players are going to get bored of matches if they remain as frequent as they are.
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