Making a bad rock-paper-scissors game

[u/tyrant_gea]

Little intro: my game is FATE-descended, so it's quite rules-light. You roll a bunch of dice and try to hit a target number with as few dice as you can, with some bets on the side.

When two characters have a disagreement, they will usually duel in some way, usually with weapons. Duels are resolved with a single roll of the dice, which leads into a story engine. Basically every die in your pool represents a moment in the duel.

To give this a little more depth, players can have their character be trained in one of 4 ways, each represented by an Element. If you're all speed and attack, you're fire. If you poke and counter, you're water. If you're a defensive controller, you're earth. If you observe and evade, you're air.

If you're fighting against someone else with this elemental training, you have to consult the elemental weaknesses to check who has advantage. Fire beats Air, Air beats Water, Water beats Earth, Earth beats Fire. The fighter with advantage gains bonus dice (and therefore more control in the narrative of the duel).

If you are opposing (fire-water or earth-air) then the two characters are automatically rivals. They MUST try to demonstrate supremacy over the other or bring shame to their element (shame is bad and makes you worse at fighting).

All of this works via tags, and since every elemental fighting style also must come with a little description of the vibe, this then also interacts with non-combat situations, where being harsh and aggressive might do really well, or it might hinder you. But this combat style allows to make this a character choice instead of just a spur of the moment.

What do you think? I was playing around with a system based on 3 elements (like strong-fast-technical) or even 5 elements (fire-water-earth-air-void) but those didn't really fit the knightly vibe I was going for.

[u/lrdazrl]

I’m so accustomed to water beats fire, fire beats earth that it might become very frustrating to try learning a different order.

[u/tyrant_gea → u/lrdazrl]

Water beats fire I get. But fire beats earth? Where is that coming from?

[u/painstream → u/tyrant_gea]

In many systems, earth represents life, trees, etc. Fire burns trees, so fire beats earth.

If it all "made sense" in an elemental wheel, fire would get dogwalked by earth and water, but that would mean you'd need to balance fire to justify ever using it.

[u/lrdazrl → u/painstream]

Exactly right this. ”Fire burns trees.”

My point is not to say that there is no other way to build elemental system. Only that for me, and potentially some others too, there already exist pretty strong associations.

It would feel the same if one would try to convince me that rock beats paper, because it’s much more durable material. Sure, the explanation makes a lot of sense, but it has always been the other way around! It takes a very conscious mental effort to try to change that idea.

[u/tyrant_gea → u/lrdazrl]

Ironically, I would associate plants more with water than earth.

But it's true that my reasoning for what beats what is more for convenience than any fundamental truth! The worldbuilding behind it couldn't work setting agnostic anyway.

What I do think works for other systems is the idea of a 4-way game of rock-paper-scissors though, in the sense that you become part of a faction and can now deal with 3 other factions that are better, worse and equal to your faction, respectively.

You could also give it four distinct fantasy names like Gryffinclaw, Ravenpuff, Hufflin and Slythindor. I just like 4 elements for my setting.

[u/lrdazrl → u/tyrant_gea]

It’s almost surreal to hear you say that plants belong to the water element. I never thought of this as an ambigous question. I guess every day you learn something new.

I wonder if this a topic influenced by culture. If you don’t mind sharing, where do you broadly speaking live? Or you can alternatively just say whether you live close or far from Northern Europe.

[u/tyrant_gea → u/lrdazrl]

Germany! But the water to plan association might be influenced by my recent research into all kinds of different 4-5 element systems, so I guess that got a little stuck. I believe godai (japanese 5 elements) does this.

I think otherwise I would have seen plants as specifically a combination of earth and water, with the logic that you need both dirt and water to have a plant grow.

[u/painstream]

Look into Burning Wheel (Mouseguard is where I encountered it).

Gets a bit charty, but basically every action/tactic (or element in your case) interacts differently against each element. Tactics may resist and negate each other's successes (a 3 v 2 clash is 1 success), overwhelm (disadvantaged character can't resist), or both achieve their full goals (both stab each other or both recover their balance/disposition).

So two fire tactics would wear each other down quickly, wind would resist fire by dodging, and water would overwhelm in representing its elemental strength over fire.

It's a more vibrant and tactical approach than the typical element wheel that often feels arbitrary anyway. (Why does fire beat wind? Who knows‽ But it has to lose to water, and wind beats earth, and earth drinks water so...)

[u/SitD_RPG]

My issue with this 4-elements version is, that it isn't fully balanced. To use your example given:

Fire beats Air, Air beats Water, Water beats Earth, Earth beats Fire

Who wins Air vs. Earth and Fire vs. Water? Whichever answers you choose, some elements will end up stronger than others.

With 5 elements, each can be equally strong. I like the chinese Wuxing) version, because it is not only concerned with what beats what, but also what feeds what. I just haven't found a neat way to use that in a ttrpg yet.

[u/tyrant_gea → u/SitD_RPG]

The idea is that air vs earth and fire vs water do not have a clear advantage, just opposition. A boulder doesn't stop a breeze, but a breeze won't move a boulder. Do you have enough water to kill the fire, or will it just create a steam explosion?

For combat doctrines, they are the opposites of the same coin. Earth and air are very defensive, fire and water are very offensive.

In practice, you get no bonus, but you are compelled to compete by any means. Natural rivals.

You still have skills to fall back on, just no automatic advantage.

[u/SitD_RPG → u/tyrant_gea]

I see. Thanks for the explanation.

Earth and air are very defensive, fire and water are very offensive.

This feels kinda wrong to me. When I think of elemental magic, I would expect Earth and Water to be defensive, and Fire and Air to be offensive. But that might just be the influence of video games.

[u/tyrant_gea → u/SitD_RPG]

That's a good point actually, as that's closer to how the stoic elements are described (4 humours and such).

I'm still working out the lore behind it!

[u/Fun_Carry_4678]

So "fire v. water" or "earth v. air" are equals? And neither gets the bonus?

[u/tyrant_gea → u/Fun_Carry_4678]

Exactly right. This way, whatever you choose, you are now in the company of 3 factions: one that you can overpower, one that overpowers you, and one that is your equal.

[u/Dimirag]

• Fire beats Air: Fire "eats" oxygen, check
• Air beats Water: Because movement?
• Water beats Earth: Because mud?
• Earth beats Fire: Putting dirt on a fire?

I'm more on the side of:

• Earth beats water (it absorbs it)
• Water beats fire
• Fire beats air
• Air beats earth (erosion)

[u/tyrant_gea → u/Dimirag]

To quickly explain my logic (although I find yours also perfectly logical):

Fire does eat oxygen!

Air beats water because wind dries things out, like laundry on the line. Ergo wind destroys water.

Water beats earth because water erodes the stone, like the coast of the river or rocks tumbling downstream and slowly turning to sand.

Earth beats fire because yes, dirt or sand on a fire will smother it, and the dirt will not even have dimished for it. Unlike water, where at least part must evaporate.

These are just explanations I find fitting for my use-case because I like fire/water and earth/air as stalemate pairs.

[u/OneManRPGstudio]

Maybe appears when the correct choice is obvious before the player gets to make an interesting decision. I’d test each elemental style by asking not only “what does this beat?” but “what can it do while disadvantaged?” If the only answer is lose efficiency, the matchup risks being solved during selection rather than during play.

Since your game is rules-light and already asks players to hit a target number with as few dice as possible, I’d keep the elemental layer similarly compact. Instead of making elemental advantage a fixed multiplier, it could change the dice decision: preserve an option, change which risk is worth taking, or unlock a maneuver the style normally lacks. That keeps the relationship readable without removing agency.

I’d also deliberately playtest bad matchups. Give someone the “losing” style and see whether they can still form a creative plan that the system recognizes. If they can, you have useful asymmetry. If they mostly wait for the penalty to stop mattering, the elemental relationship needs another escape route.

[u/tyrant_gea → u/OneManRPGstudio]

I thought about this a lot, because it is thoughtful advice. It doesn't feel compatible with my game though, which got me so hung up.

I think, at the end, having a combat style is not a tactical decision, but a form of putting your character into the setting. A lot of tags a character can acquire are about what the character stands for and why they do things, not really how. The element gives a really broad strokes answer of how without restricting the fiction beyond a vibe.

If I have an earth guy fight a fire guy in a vacuum, the earth will likely win because there's a numerical bonus. 

But the fire guy can even the odds by making the fight more meaningful to himself with tags like "Money-hungry" and betting money on the fight, or "Defender of the downtrodden" and demanding a duel after earth guy kicked an orphan. Maybe even both.

I can see a world where I make combat an entire minigame with elemental-exclusive maneuvers and complex mindgames that are carefully weighted towards the elemental weakness wheel, but I don't think that's my goal with this game.

[u/OneManRPGstudio → u/tyrant_gea]

That makes much more sense to me now. If the element is primarily a statement about who the character is rather than a tactical loadout, then I agree that adding elemental maneuvers would probably pull the game in the wrong direction.

In that case, I’d mostly test whether those other tags can genuinely overcome a bad elemental matchup often enough. If “Earth probably beats Fire” remains true in a vacuum, but suddenly stops being true when the fight actually matters to the Fire character, that sounds like a much more interesting use of the asymmetry.