Honor & Dishonor
Honor & Dishonor
The Green Knight RPG and tug of war mechanisms
Last week we looked at character creation in CY_BORG, and this week we look at tug of war mechanisms…
The Green Knight
It’s not for everyone, but I really enjoyed A24’s The Green Knight (2021), written and directed by David Lowery. Adapted from the late 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the film is slow (in a good way), beautiful, and intentionally ambiguous.
So when A24 released The Green Knight - A Fantasy Roleplaying Game (along with a retro ad), I of course picked up a copy.
The game comes in a slim box that is honestly mostly empty. A thirty page rulebook, a map of questionable utility, five character sheets/playbooks, and a single, black and green twenty-sided die.
While I would have expected the system to be closer to Dungeons & Dragons or PBTA, instead it’s an extremely minimal system. There isn’t much “character creation” to speak of, beyond selecting a name, abilities, and skills for one of the five classes: Hunter, Knight, Sorcerer, Bard, or Noble. Even details like combat are largely left unexplained.
Skill Checks
Here’s where it gets interesting!
Skill checks are performed with a single d20 roll vs. a target. The target is your current Dishonor, on a scale of 2 - 20, and always starting the game at 10.
Dishonor is tracked at the top of each character sheet on a Scale of Dishonor:
Gain 20 Dishonor and the adventure ends.
Honor & Dishonor
Every action in The Green Knight comes with a skill check. Each action is categorized as either Honorable or Dishonorable by the game master (GM), and then you roll:
When you make a Skill Check, roll the 20-sided die (D20). If you roll equal to or higher than your current Dishonor, you succeed at the action you are attempting. If you roll less than your current Dishonor, you fail at the action, either through ineptitude, cowardice, or just bad luck.
So you need to roll higher than your Dishonor. That seems fairly standard. Where it gets interesting is if you decided to make a Dishonorable action:
If the GM deems that an action is considered Dishonorable, then you must roll a D20 and try to get equal to or LESS than your current Dishonor to succeed at the action; roll higher than your Dishonor, and you fail due to shame, hesitation, or misfortune.
Bonuses from Abilities and Skills work in both directions. Having the Charm ability might give +2 to an Honorable die roll but a -2 to a Dishonorable die roll.
Additionally, your Dishonor is affected by the outcome:
Attempt an Honorable action and fail: +1 Dishonor
Attempt an Honorable action and succeed: -1 Dishonor
Attempt a Dishonorable action: +1 Dishonor
Dishonor is also increased by one at the start of each Encounter, and increased or decreased during a Judgement phase at the end of each Encounter. During Judgement, you check what you’ve done vs. a list of items. You might get -1 Dishonor for completing a secret objective or +2 Dishonor for allowing someone to die.
The Judgement lists are weighted more toward gaining Dishonor vs. reducing it.
The Simulation
Here are the assumptions:
Characters start at 10 on their Scale of Dishonor.
There are about five skill checks per encounter. No idea if this is accurate, but the encounters in the book seem extremely short.
One Dishonor point is added for Initiative (i.e. every five skill checks).
Bonuses are ignored. You can choose two abilities and four skills at the start, each of which will provide +/- 2 to an applicable die roll, but for simplicity these are ignored.
Atonement is ignored. There’s a way for players to spend Honor to help players at risk of going too far toward Dishonor, but that’s ignored in this simulation.
Dishonor can never go above 20 or less than 2.
All actions are Honorable. This should probably be a mix, but to keep it simple we have a character that always acts in an honorable way.
Partial run might look like this:
---
#1 New initiative.
Adding 1 to Dishonor (11).
---
Rolled 20 vs. 11 Dishonor
Success! Reduce Dishonor by 1
Dishonor is now 10.
Rolled 3 vs. 10 Dishonor
Failure! Increase Dishonor by 1
Dishonor is now 11.
Rolled 1 vs. 11 Dishonor
Failure! Increase Dishonor by 1
Dishonor is now 12.
Rolled 2 vs. 12 Dishonor
Failure! Increase Dishonor by 1
Dishonor is now 13.
...
Rolled 14 vs. 19 Dishonor
Failure! Increase Dishonor by 1
Dishonor is now 20.
Dishonor is 20+ and the adventure ends.We can do this hundreds of times and look at the trend of Dishonor after each skill check:
The line is the mean Dishonor at a given skill check, while the shaded areas are the 95% CI. The dark purple line is adding +1 Dishonor every five rolls as per the rules, while the other two show what -1 and 0 might look like.
Nothing succeeds like success! You can see that once the Dishonor dips below 10, it becomes easier to succeed and therefore continues a downward trend.
In the actual game, however, there would be a Judgement at the end of each encounter. So let’s add a random Dishonor adjustment of between -5 and +10 every 20 skill checks.
Now it’s clear why the Judgements are weighted toward Dishonor! It’s necessary to boost the Dishonor every so often to counteract the effect of succeeding making it easier to succeed.
That seems like a pretty well thought out design!
Tug of War
“A marker is moved up and back on a track towards or away from a neutral position.” — BoardGameGeek Game Mechanisms
The Green Knight “Scale of Dishonor” is what I would consider a tug of war mechanism. Most examples on BGG have players actively “pulling” in each direction, but I think it can work in single player situations as well. I absolutely love both the gameplay tension this system creates, as well as the visual representation of game state.
Two of my favorite examples:
7 Wonders Duel
7 Wonders Duel changes the military tracking from the original 7 Wonders by creating a tug of war tracker. Rather than just comparing military values, each shield on the red military cards allows you to move the Conflict Pawn one space in the direction of the opposing capital. Pushing into new zones earns rewards, and entering the space of the opponent’s capital immediately wins the game via military supremacy. It makes the military thread visible, and a rather stressful part of the game!
Time of Legends: Joan of Arc
Time of Legends: Joan of Arc has two influence tracks that are used in some scenarios. In the scenario “The Child”, both tracks are used. The token starts at zero, and depending on actions (e.g. unit destroyed or disrupted) it moves right to the Holy side or left to the Unholy side. You end up with a -9 to +9 range, with benefits to specific sides for certain tiers. For example, if it is between +4 and +6 the Holy side gets two extra black dice when defending. A simple addition to the scenario that thematically reinforces the struggle between good and evil!
Other games that I haven’t yet played but are examples are Twilight Struggle (2005), Watergate (2019), and Hidden Leaders (2022). Also Churchill (2015) has a unique three way tug of war.
If you have more examples of this from the TTRPG world, I’d love to hear about them!
Conclusion
Some things to think about:
Tug of war trackers are visually interesting. You could just have each side track a value and compare, but tug of war is immediately clear and shows the push or pull of each side.
The tug of war concept can work for any set of opposites. Honor vs. dishonor, full vs. empty, floating vs. sinking, or almost anything else. It’s extremely versatile.
It seems to work equally well in board games and role playing games. While they show up mostly in COIN-style games, I’d love to see this mechanism more! It wouldn’t be hard to add to a TTRPG character sheet, or along the edge of a board game. The Green Knight is a great example!
What do you think about tug of war mechanisms in board games an TTRPGs? Have any favorite examples? Please share them!
See you next week!
— E.P. 💀
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Update March 14, 2023 at 4:48 PM: Fixed an error in the first pull quote that incorrectly said “equal to or less than,” where it should say “equal to or higher than.” Thanks to those who caught this. It has been corrected.
Hey! I finally played Hidden Leaders (mentioned above)!
It's another good example of a tug of war system, but with a twist. You are competing to get the two different tokens into specific zones or positions. You might want to run one token to the end of the track, or you might want to just keep the two tokens next to each other.
It's a simple game, so I look forward to trying the expansion. But it's a great example of how to modify a common mechanism to make it more interesting.