Verbs of Play

The more I catch up on the existing TTRPG blogosphere, the more I'm continually elated to see how much people use video game design and lessons as a touchstone for making / running better games on the tabletop. (My favorite example is Metroid being sited in Landmark, Hidden, Secret). And yet one thing I don't see get talked about much is maybe one of the most quintessential tenants of design: Verbs. And I don't mean what Verbs the GM uses to guide the players (though Matt Colville has a really good video on that). I mean Verbs as in System Verbs, as in "The verbs the system is most built for" or "Actions the player can take." Sure Players can do almost anything in any TTRPG, but different systems are built for different Verbs. 

(Art courtesy of Destiny and LIGHT[[*1]] - In the middle is a collection of my Dungeon Crawly "Ameritrash" board games)

In Video Games, Verbs are more constricted by their hardware and are essentially "The actions you can take in a game." ((For the purposes of this article, there's big-idea Macro Verbs, like BEAT ENEMIES and more specific Micro Verbs like STOMP HEAD, THROW FIRE, etx). Some example of Macro Verbs in Video Games are:

• In Super Mario Bros (1985) you (primarily) MOVE, JUMP, BEAT ENEMIES, COLLECT (coins).
• Where as in Journey (2012) you (primarily) MOVE, JUMP, SOLVE PUZZLES, COLLECT (symbols) and CHIRP to your ally. Even if Journey was 2D the addition of that single Verb and the replacement of another makes a world of difference in terms of the themes and emotions the game evokes.
• In Final Fantasy (1987) you (primarily) EXPLORE, LISTEN, MANAGE RESOURCE, KILL, LOOT, SHOP, EQUIP, LEVEL-UP - And all of a sudden we have a distinct genre with its own primary Verbs (Verbs which'll feel all too familiar to the TTRPG crowd).

By guiding player agency to these Verbs, we not only cement genre and theme, but quite literally dictate the flow of play. Flow is the key word, because in a TTRPG you can technically do anything, but different systems are built to guide you towards different Verbs. An example from Tabletop is that Dungeons & Dragons 5e is built with FIGHT as a primary and focal (if not mandatory) Verb. Whereas many old-school Dungeons & Dragons fans have nostalgia for verbs like TRAVEL or MANAGE LIGHT for which there are few procedures or rules for in 5e.

The how of these Verbs is equally important. If there's a FIGHT Verb, is there also a SPARE Verb? Or should the FIGHT Verb simply be KILL? Is there a consequence Verb to KILL? Usually the consequence is getting LOOT. What are the rules for KILLING? What additional Verbs do those give me? (MANAGE SPELLS, MANAGE HEALTH, POSITION, USE ITEM, etx)

I'd say it's good design practice to keep all the information for your main Verbs right in front of your Player (via a Character Sheet) and would also postulate the Verbs available on a Character Sheet will influence Player actions and expectations. 

(Ex: In Steel Hearts Pilots have no health. This creates the Player expectation that they won't be using their Pilot's health as a resource, but also lets them know their pilot is incredibly vulnerable to death and injury. Conversely, on the same sheet a huge amount of room is given to Pilot Gravities, dramatic elements of their character or narrative that they can call upon to gain bonuses to any roll. This immediately injects DRAMA as a major Verb in the game.)

In a way you might like to think of Procedures as a means of curating a game's Verbs, while Rules are a means of executing them. When used effectively this can make a system or game table sing. When used out of habit or tradition they offer ultimately vapid loops that take no advantage of TTRPG's incredible hardware (re: the human brain).

Speaking of vapid loops:

PART 1 - KILL, LOOT, LEVEL UP

An issue I have with a lot of RPGs is that the primary (and often only) Verbs in play are KILL, LOOT and LEVEL UP. I think it's at the heart of why a lot of people find traditional TTRPG structures colonialist (the main verbs of a colony expedition is to KILL the locals, LOOT the land to send goods back and LEVEL UP your status in society). It's also a loop of Verbs that a lot of games don't particularly branch out from. AND it's also a set of Verbs I seldom see executed well. When a game lacks systems for doing anything besides KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP the player begins to expect and only steer themselves to do as much.

If I had to bet, I'd say this loop is probably popular because it's a power fantasy of domination and accumulation, both of which have their appeal to audiences for different reasons (See also: this rad af article about the phallic desire and drive behind the D&D gameplay loop by Marcia B.). My issues and thoughts on power fantasy (especially in regards to this specific loop) are beyond the scope of this already long blog post. Suffice to say I generally only enjoy these kinds of fantasies if I'm A) actively playing a scoundrel or mercenary (because I find it kind of weird when this loop is contextualized as unambiguously heroic, but playing a "bad guy" can be a blast) or B) The gameplay mechanics (and Micro Verbs) are compelling and "fun" enough for me to ignore how shallow the Macro Verb loop is.

Because there are of course the Micro Verbs in KILL, like MANAGE RESOURCE (usually health or ammo) or POSITION. More tactical games actually take advantage of this loop by adding a whole host of engaging Sub-Verbs into the KILL Segment. Verbs like TERRITORY DENIAL, REACT, SUPPORT, EMPOWER, SACRIFICE, EXPLOIT WEAKNESS, etx. Yet many Rules-Light games want to champion stripping away these Micro Verbs and complexity like it's some drastic improvement. For a story game where KILL is only one of a cornucopia of Verbs (like in Blades in the Dark), I'd agree! But for a game in which KILL is one of the primary Verbs, you're simply stripping away Player options in combat so you have time for *check notes* more combat. This is my main problem with LIGHT (and some of the design tenants in LUMEN which is functionally a mandatory read for understanding LIGHT) [*2] which I'll be using as an example of how we can use Verbs to critique a thing, and maybe track its influence and where things could've gone better.

TO BE NOTED: I spend a lot of time in this article picking apart what I dislike about LIGHT (and by extension bits of LUMEN) and I just wanted you all to know it's nothing personal against those games' designer Spencer Campbell (who from what I can tell does really good work). In fact RUNE looks really cool and I know Spencer was working on a card game version of NOVA which had some potential as well! More importantly I wanted to take some time to direct you all towards Spencer Campbell's website and mailing list. Usually when name dropping a designer I like to link to their Twitter, but unfortunately the hellish bird site seems to have banned them for *checks notes* pretty much no reason aside from some absurd bot flagging. It sucks ass to lose a platform, especially for folks who design as a profession. So I highly encourage you all to go check out Spencer's work and show some support if you want to!

With that said I'm not going to shy away from critiquing LIGHT or LUMEN. Critique is what helps us push a medium forward and it's just as important to celebrate the positive (which you'll also see plenty of in here) as it is to pick apart the negatives. This blog was designed from the onset for me to speak from the heart about what I see in games, specifically tabletop games, and I intend to do the same with LIGHT and LUMEN (and likely RUNE when I get around to reading it). I respect these works' designer and the effort they put in tremendously (and genuinely think the Season Pass thing LIGHT does is super neat) and I don't for a second take for granted the kind of effort it takes to make a game. These two works are available for free and I encourage you to take a peak for yourself. They're not perfect, but they've definitely got some neat ideas which I'd love to see Spencer (or someone) revisit and expand. [[Edit: As an additional note, LUMEN is kind of a weird animal because it's part SRD, part design doc, part philosophy. But given that it bills itself as a system, one which "is an RPG system for action packed, power fantasy games", I'm mainly going to be judging it on those merits, particularly through the lens of LIGHT.]]

Meanwhile I've been playing Destiny for 7+ years and oh boy this critique of that game has been a long time coming.

PART 2 - LUDONARRATIVE DISSONANCE

I can hear the groans already. If you were on the internet between 2005 and 2018 you may have encountered this jargon phrase from any number of video game critics. The classic example is Lara Croft feeling sick after her first kill and then snapping right back to gunning down tens of hundreds of goons on the rest of her adventure without even flinching. The Verb KILL being so focal conflicts with the narrative that "Killing is Hard for Lara and Generally a Bad Thing." That conflict is Ludonarrative Dissonance. Maybe if there was also a Verb STRESS that built up every time you took a life things would be different. Anyways, now that you get that let's talk about LIGHT by talking about its inspiration:

When critically acclaimed sci-fi life-consumer Destiny (2014) first released, it was often compared to the wildly popular Borderlands franchise. On first glance the story, setting and narrative goals of these two franchises seem starkly different: Destiny is a post-apocalyptic space epic about forgiveness, change, and persistence in the face of defeat. Borderlands is a high-octane comedy thrill-ride about being a badass (you literally accumulate Badass Points) and making bank. Borderlands' Verbs are as clear as its story, while Destiny's Verbs are often at odds with it. Lets look at the typical Borderlands quest vs a quest from this Season of Destiny.

• In a Borderlands quest you may get a BRIEF from Mad Moxxi. The verb here wouldn't be TALK as the conversation will likely only end in one way, the acceptance of an objective. She's ordered you to get rid of a group of Bandits in the area. There is no room for negotiation, they will attack you on sight, and even if you avoid them your wallet is none the fuller.
• You then must TRAVEL to the Bandits which takes a pretty minimal amount of effort, but frankly the cars have always been a blast in Borderlands.
• Next you light up the Bandit camp because you have to KILL all the bandits. You have to SURVIVE the combat encounter, otherwise you'll lose some precious cash, but it's not the focal point of gameplay so that's more of a Micro Verb. Namely because the only way to survive while progressing the quest is to KILL (Unlike in Survival Horror or Sandbox Survival where combat can and often should be avoided to prioritize survival).
• Once the dust has settled you LOOT the area for all it's worth (gun drops, hidden chests, trash cans, etx).
• Lastly you TRAVEL back to Mad Moxxi and DEBRIEF for extra cash and XP.
• In between all of this you'll want to GEAR / LEVEL-UP to be ready for the next combat encounter. (Also from here on in I'll be using LEVEL-UP to also cover gear advancement).

So let's take stock of the loop that's happening here: BRIEF -> TRAVEL -> KILL -> LOOT -> TRAVEL -> DEBRIEF -> LEVEL-UP [[REPEAT]]. Not the most sophisticated loop to be certain. One could even point it out as being mildly problematic and part of extractive / colonialist power fantasies (especially since Borderlands deals with colonies on the edge - re: Westerns). But ultimately it serves its story of jovial violent bombast between scoundrels excellently. You're not necessarily the hero here, you're just here to get rich. [[*3]]

Now let's take Destiny's weekly loop this season, where your character is attempting to outsmart a rival pirate gang of Eliksni (ie The Fallen - An alien race) with the help of allied pirate Eliksni. I won't spoil the specifics of the plot, but suffice to say the dialogue and cutscenes make this Season's story about moving away from being a ruthless killer and giving everyone a chance at redemption. Let's see how our Guardian (the Player character) plays those themes out:

• The weekly loop begins and you get a BRIEF from Mithrax via a communication in the HELM. Unlike Moxxi's quest you probably didn't skip right past the text block (or maybe you did! It wouldn't matter) and get some better context for why you need to go hunt down some pirates. I almost added "Watch" as a verb because Destiny has taken on an almost TV-like sense of checking in on its story. However I'm trying to restrict Verbs only to actions the Player can take. Clicking through mandatory text blocks doesn't count.
• You QUEUE up (I'm using Queue as a half joke here cause lordy the hours I've probably spent in Destiny Queues) and load into a mission to KILL some enemy pirates in this Season's Ritual Activity Ketchcrash. Here you board an enemy pirate ship to one of Destiny's best OSTs and maybe throw some bombs to blow more stuff up. For those unaware, Ritual Activities are repeatable missions (usually Player vs Environment) that you do while matchmade with some random other Guardians. Ketchcrash is a simple but swashbuckling good time, despite the only Macro Verb in the whole activity being KILL and the (garbage) LOOT you may get along the way,
• Next you have the coordinates to a specific pirate lair because you *checks notes* KILLED enough champions. Now you QUEUE into the Lair mission and KILL the Pirate Boss and grab their LOOT.
• Finally you QUEUE into the Eliksni Quarter to DEBRIEF and watch a cutscene about how violence isn't always the answer. What a profound lesson. Maybe (if you're lucky) you LEVEL-UP if you got a good roll on a gun.

Compared to Borderlands, Destiny's loop is BRIEF -> QUEUE -> KILL -> LOOT -> QUEUE -> KILL -> LOOT -> QUEUE -> DEBRIEF -> LEVEL-UP [[REPEAT]]. Yikes! Not only does that seem to run counter to the game's plot, but it sounds really tedious given there's no real Verbs to break up the Killing (Differences in Kind is a whole other discussion that's important and I won't get hugely into here). And trust me, as someone who's been playing since Destiny 1's Alpha, it is tedious. That game's gunplay (re: Micro Verbs) are immaculate, but after 7 years they're having to pull out all the stops to keep that game fun.

So why do I bring up this example? In a TTRPG couldn't you have just talked some pirates out of fighting? Or maybe used stealth to steal the treasure without any of the pirates knowing? Or perhaps just used my ship for the whole thing? Well I bring up this example because a lot of these things come down to what a system is built for, because that acts like a funnel of least resistance for where GMs may design their encounters and where players may opt for solutions (in my experience at least).

PART 3 - ADAPTING THE LOOP

To preface I'd like to say that I'm judging LIGHT purely on its Core Rules and what I can gather from reading LUMEN. I'm aware the game has two Season Passes that expand the game's mechanics and (seemingly) some of it's verbs, but here we're just talking about the Core LIGHT system that's available for all for free.

Now to adapt Destiny's loop as it stands into a TTRPG the only verbs you need are BRIEF -> KILL -> LOOT -> DEBRIEF -> LEVEL-UP - And sure enough LIGHT (and thus LUMEN) is exactly that. It is a game whose literal main loop is as follows:

((We're going to ignore for right now that the phrase "exploring an open world for opportunities" runs counter to that paragraph and most of LIGHT/LUMEN's written design and feels more like a suggestion to the GM to add more things in)). So clearly the loop in the LUMEN's system is actually a more open BRIEF -> MISSION -> LOOT -> LEVEL-UP. Well... Not really. Near as I can tell there's ~3 sentences in the whole SRD about non-combat resolution and the SRD literally says on page 1 that it's "combat focused". Just look at this table of contents and you'll see it's true to that goal:

Welp. Looks like the loop really is BRIEF -> KILL -> LOOT -> DEBRIEF -> LEVEL-UP. [[*4]] It's probably at about this point that I should say I'm not a huge fan of LIGHT (and by extension the systems presented by LUMEN). They're games that feel like they take the Procedure and Macro Verbs from grind games like Destiny as well as visual influences while ignoring the Micro-Verbs that make these games special. ((And also not expounding on what Destiny could be by adding new Verbs. But that was never a stated intent of these systems so that's more of a personal gripe as a Destiny fan.))

It's clear that these were the Verbs LIGHT was trying to emulate, and thus the scope of the system mostly ends there. Even though LIGHT seems to insist again and again that your character is The Good Guy and a Champion of humanity, it uncritically (from what I've seen in the core book) posits your character as little else but a weapon. Much like its dissonant inspiration. 

It also completely passes on the opportunity to explore all the juicy Macro Verbs necessary to get more out of the source material than a video game could ever achieve. I want a Destiny game where DIPLOMACY is an option, where my Guardian can HELP on relief efforts in the Eliksni quarter, where each Fallen killed INSPIRES FEAR and makes me more like the boogie-man the Eliksni see Saint-14 as, further straining peaceful relations. It's Verbs like these, the really messy Verbs, that you can only really get in a TTRPG. ((Again this is more of a personal gripe, but I feel like a lot of games inspired by established IPs don't often ask enough "What Verbs can I only achieve here in the TTRPG?")

Now lets compare this to a completely different type of game that expounds more on this loop. One that's still rules-light and shares a few Verbs. The OSR-Styled Dungeons & Dragons, you know the type of game. Encumbrance, core stats, roll-to-hit, the works. You're not so much the Good Guy in this, so much as you're an Ambitious Guy. Less Aragorn more Griffith.

In something like a West Marches campaign of Dungeons & Dragons we see a similar (though admittedly more interesting) loop, with more direction from Players. The primary goals are generally still to LOOT and LEVEL-UP, but the systems of D&D (especially old-school D&D) actually support a more nuanced form of play: 

• Players ASSESS THE MAP for points of interest, potential treasures, etx.
• DECIDE A GOAL amongst the team that they personally want to achieve. It could be exploring the unknown, it could be doing a job for a townsperson. But lets be real it'll probably involve violence and rewards.
• The Players EXPLORE the area on their way to their objective. EXPLORE being a more nuanced version of TRAVEL, where random encounters and new discoveries can be made. EXPLORE also necessitates the need to CONSERVE RESOURCES and manage things like Food and Light.
• Players will likely have to deal with local wildlife or dangerous traps, thus they must SURIVE ENCOUNTERS, as violence isn't their main goal. Their main goal (which can be achieved regardless of fighting) is:
• EXTRACT LOOT and bring it from the untamed wilderness back to camp. 
• Next they must SURVIVE RETURN TRAVEL or risk losing what they worked so hard for.
• Lastly they LEVEL-UP back at base after collecting their rewards, selling their treasures or assessing their artifacts.

Well damn! Now we've upgraded to ASSESS THE MAP -> DECIDE A GOAL -> EXPLORE -> SURVIVE ENCOUNTERS -> EXTRACT LOOT -> SURVIVE RETURN TRAVEL -> LEVEL-UP. So much to do, so many Verbs for the Player to engage with. No wonder everyone wants to run one of these campaigns! 

However it's obviously still stuck in a bit of that colonialist mindset. We can change that easily by changing one simple verb: EXTRACT LOOT, to say DELIVER PACKAGE. And now all of a sudden we have a Death Stranding campaign. With this our Player has a number of interesting fresh verbs we might add, like PROTECT THE PACKAGE, BUILD ROAD, CONNECT TO CHIRAL NETWORK. And frankly we wouldn't need to change systems away from D&D to get this done, where as much of this would be incredibly cumbersome to even attempt to run with something the systems LUMEN presents in its SRD (which is explicitly not designed for this, it's designed for "combat" and pretty much only combat). Although I do think a bespoke system for Death Stranding where you need to manage resources, exhaustion and balance would be lovely.

Isn't it peculiar that the much maligned Dungeons & Dragons is actually more versatile than this beloved Indie TTRPG darling LUMEN? [[This is bait because]] Well it's not really surprising at all. I cherry picked this example to highlight that LUMEN (as a system) really is designed for combat only, so of course to make a West Marches styled game with it (especially a potential non-combat variant) would be a huge amount of work, to the point where you may consider starting from scratch. (And designing from scratch with your ideal Verbs in mind.)

That's not a criticism of LUMEN either. Focused Verbs and design goals can actually be very good! It's just an illustration of Verbs in action. Like how I wouldn't turn to Mothership to make a hack that's an Animal Crossing-esc farm sim. The Verbs simply aren't there.

It just goes to show that simpler doesn't mean better or more versatile, it just means focused. And most importantly it means the Verbs you design for (and the Verbs your SRD are designed for) matter a great deal for what is likely to happen at the table.

Also the more recent D&D 5e similarly doesn't actually provide great Systems for following West Marches Verbs. So (much like if you built this off of LUMEN) a lot of this would come down to GM prep, added Procedure and scenario structure. In fact, I think the reason I bemoan the idea of playing another 5e game is because most 5e games and pre-written adventures similarly boil down to BRIEF -> KILL -> LOOT ->  LEVEL-UP. And it makes sense because similarly 5e's main design Verbs, the things that are highlighted on the character sheet, are KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP. *sigh*

PART 3.5 - GMING THE GRIND (AN ASIDE)

It's worth noting that running a KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP loop sounds incredibly monotonous for the GM. In LIGHT's loop there isn't much for the GM to do but throw waves of enemies (specifically combative KILL focused enemies) at the Player. The GM has an incredibly limited set of Micro Verbs to use when enemies react, and it feels like the enemies are just faceless hordes with the directive to "Kill them back." Sure I can have some fun roleplaying one of the Factions when Players grab bounties, and I will admit having 3 choices per enemy as a reaction is a solid number. The issues is those choices require a lot of GM legwork and ruling to make compelling (vs say just making it all up from scratch on the spot or using a bespoke specific system). "Coordinate a robust attack" is not a move, it's a suggestion at best. Meanwhile moves like "Activate cloaking technology" or "Teleport to a Beacon (player) to strike" or "Summon a turret" are nice and specific. They give you a better idea of maybe where this game could've gone and offer enough to make a fast ruling.

The role of the GM then is to essentially act more like a narrator, ensuring optimal badassery and stakes. But I'm left wanting more from LIGHT's prompts in terms of how I'm supposed to keep the flames burning and keep combat interesting for players (beyond my own imaginative descriptions). I feel all at once constrained by the verbs I'm given and not sufficiently supported to execute on the game's goals. If the goal was for the player to be a badass I want to be able to provide challenges that let them use badass Verbs that go beyond KILL (verbs that are simply unavailable unless I make stuff up to catch up with the game's KILL rules). LIGHT has some shadow of this and maybe if it'd gotten just a bit more expounded on it would've opened up a whole new range of Verbs to the player that its source inspiration had closed off. 

(Ex: If the 3 Elemental ways of "approaching an Action" had a tiny bit more to go off of, something to pair them with. Especially given the only Actions the game goes over are KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP. Even just some examples like my Colossus can use Pyre to bust down a door, while my Wych may use Nether to hack it. But when the game spends pages pouring over the KILL verb and a mere 16 words implying a whole other subset of Verbs, it gives the impression that those are Verbs of last resort, to be ignored until absolutely needed.)

Alternatively if the goal is for the players to blast through hordes and do literally nothing else, I'd frankly prefer to play a Co-Op board game like Zombicide or Super Dungeon Explore whose only verbs are KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP. These games execute those verbs elegantly and without the need for GM (that way everyone can be enjoying the somewhat mindless fun). Those board games also meticulously balance their Micro Verbs and actual Rules so you'll have a fairly consistently fun experience despite (often) a relative lack of tactile depth, and the game will flow fast and fun. ((It's also why I take a bit of inspiration from these kinds of Board Games' kinetics in my own design)).

[[Edit: A half baked idea that I wanted to toss in here is that I'm not saying I dislike GMing Ruleslight uncritical badassery simulators. Quite to the contrary I've had a blast GMing the classic "dice game" (essentially d20 system where players make up their own stats) or hyper ruleslight systems like Risus (which I haven't explicitly played but which looks like a solid time!) But I enjoy GMing these because both me and the Players are explicitly given tons of freedom. They're absolute Verb chimeras where players are encouraged to solve problems however they feel like (Violence, diplomacy, magic, something weird... it's always something weird but that's part of the fun!) and thus play follows the "vibes" of the table. LIGHT on the other hand constrains the Verbs to ones that rotate around KILL without giving me as much to go off as I'd like. It's an influence at the table but one that provides too much direction to be ignored, but not enough to be fully followed to the letter. Something, something, Versatile Verbs - I'll get back to this idea later.]]

INTERMISSION - THE VERBS OF FISHING

OR MOVING PAST THE KILL-LOOT-LEVEL-UP LOOP

Whew - This article is long. Anyways let's take a break from all this violence to talk about one of my favorite Verbs in games: FISH. Specifically I want to talk about how the KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP loop isn't necessary for even traditional style of "Heroically explore the wilderness to save the day." In fact you can get all this better in one of my favorite TTRPGs Rod, Reel and Fist. All through the careful curation of what Verbs the Player has at their disposal.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Rod, Reel & Fist is a game about Fishing. The general loop involves the following:

• Players begin by setting up a Village with character they're connected to, it's also a Village with a tragedy that needs resolving. In doing so they CREATE MOTIVATION for why they want to help the Village by capturing the Fish of Legend.
• To do this they must TRAVEL through the Wilderness. It should be noted there are absolutely no rules for conquering the Wilderness proper. Catching fish, fighting off hostile animals, making camp, etx- That's all present. But it's very clear that you are not the top of the food chain, nor are you ever meant to be. You're merely a part in nature. Speaking of...
•  Players will have to SURVIVE hostile encounters with hungry animals, dangerous flash floods and other such challenges. This covers the Micro Verbs of MANAGE STRESS / EXHAUSTION and USE TEAMWORK (a literal mechanic). It should be noted that even in "Animal Combat" your goal is to repel animals that attack you, not to KILL them (The game explicitly states "When an animal loses combat, it is driven off and it does not come back.") Explicitly axing Verbs can sometimes be as impactful as adding them. Rod Reel & Fist is generally low lethality so SURVIVE may be a bit extreme, but it expresses that violence is rarely the only answer. What is often the answer is...
• Players must then FISH - This Verb honestly breaks down to a couple of Micro Verbs like how you BLUFF against the fish in a kind of Rock/Paper/Scissors or how your allies can provide SUPPORT by Shouting Encouragement and Sharing Snacks. 
• Fishers will then MAKE CAMP (a limited resource) to restore Stress and Exhaustion as well as cash in bonuses from their caught fish (usually by means of MAKING SNACKS).
• It should be noted that there's not much in the way of the LEVEL-UP step, which is kind of how I like it. You can LEARN techniques from catching certain fish or talking to certain NPCs but it's not tied to a Loot / Accumulation loop in the same way LIGHT is.
• While most of the game is a TRAVEL, SURVIVE, FISH, MAKE CAMP Loop, the game has a very definite end when the players either A) RUN OUT OF CAMPS or B) CATCH THE FISH OF LEGEND. In this way FISH is contextualized not as some means of vast accumulation for the sake of accumulation, it's a means to an ends and that ends is:
• HELP the village by returning the Fish of Legend and alleviating the Tragedy. Congratulations! A hero is you and you didn't have to kill or loot anyone![[*5]]

If this whole affair is sounding heart warming and lovely that's because it very much is. Rod, Reel and Fist has a very concise list of carefully curated Macro and Micro Verbs to provide a sense of adventure without a sense of conquest. The main highlights are teamwork, exploration, bluffing and a tight resource budget. When KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP is supplanted by TRAVEL, SURVIVE, FISH, MAKE CAMP, we get similar mechanically satisfactory beats but wildly different tonal ones.

PART 4 - ADDING NEW VERBS

But maybe your players want an experience that focuses on the KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP loop but goes a bit beyond. Maybe you want to design a system or run a campaign that has this loop with meat to it (like a West Marches campaign). Borderlands spiced things up with TRAVEL in a car. Similarly we can add Verbs not just with mechanics but with Procedures. There's a lot of good literature on Procedures out there (here's an excellent primer on it from Prismastic Wasteland), but the gist is that these are the macro processes by which the game is played. The rules for following the rules. The "rinse-repeat" loop. In many ways the KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP loop can be seen as a kind of Procedure. If Rules are the meal and Procedures are how you cook it, Verbs are the flavor. (I'm not sure if that analogy works as well as it did in my head, but hopefully you get the gist here).

DRAMA is a common Verb to add into the KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP loop. It's why I think a lot of traditional tables (especially ones inspired by the D&D 4e style of play) now work on a kind of procedure where you have DRAMA time balanced with KILL time (salty and sweet). Most of the games I run and write have some element of this and it can add a lot!

If we want players to add the Verb DRAMA into our game, we need procedures for DRAMA. Ex: Maharlika has excellent Procedures for your pilot getting into trouble between combat sessions. The literal Fiesta Phase is maybe my favorite procedure in TTRPGs right now, and it's also how your pilot gains new missions. It is a phase after a (usually combat focused) mission in which your Pilot attends a Social Gathering to try to schmooze around for their next job (or Skip Out to get another Trade Phase action).  It's a substantive, concise way to add non-combat Verbs into the game (and helps you get an idea for the kinds of people these pilots are when Show-Off is a main Verb on offer).

LIGHT (much like its inspiration) has only the most basic form of this procedure in being able to seek out and take contracts from specific Factions. The game provides no Verbs here (like Show-Off, Skip Out, Socialize, etx) but instead offers the singular TAKE BOUNTY. If you take and complete the bounty you increase your standing. Bounties involve Missions (which are mostly the KILL->LOOT loop) and increasing your standing grants you bonuses on Missions. Pretty straightforward. In fact so straightforward we could boil this down to BRIEF. Whereas Maharlika's mission selection is truly dramatic and provides the GM and players with an ample stage to effortlessly improv on (with only a single page of instructions).

Another option is to add in a whole host of Procedures to get something closer to a West Marches campaign. The much beloved Errant (which I personally haven't read too much of, but I've enjoyed what I have read and also holy shit look at that gorgeous character sheet) champions itself as a kind of Procedure buffet, the Salad Bar to make your KILL-LOOT-LEVEL-UP loop feel a little more healthy. 

I could go on about the types of Procedures one could add, but I'll rattle these off and you'll likely be able to think of good examples: MANAGE LIGHT / OXYGEN / WATER, EAT, TRAVEL, MAP, SOLVE PUZZLE, DIPLOMACY, INVESTIGATE, BUILD STRUCTURE, HIRE, BUILD, HEAL, RUN SHOP, PAY RENT.

PART 5 - VERBS OF VIOLENCE

OK, OK, so you've decided you don't want to write a bunch of interesting procedures like Errant, and you just want the KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP loop because you find it fun (I'm with you on that sometimes). Let's go back to our Destiny and LIGHT example because maybe LIGHT is the perfect system that you're looking for (spoiler: ehhhhhhh).

So when adapting Destiny to Tabletop we're going to obviously drop the QUEUE Verb, because yeah that sucks and is boring. LIGHT opted to get players right into the action, which has its advantages, but I think a procedure for TRAVEL would've been pretty fun. Maybe your Jumpship can only get as far out as Mars until you complete a certain objective there to expand your influence. Or maybe you need to buddy up with one of LIGHT's factions, the part of the game I thought expanded from its source material the most, in order to be able to jump further and thus take on more lucrative missions. [[Edit: Hecking wow! In doing my final research pass before publishing this article it turns out there might be a system kind of like this in LIGHT's ECLIPSE Season Pass - It even involves the Factions! Which proves my point all the more that you should be trying to spice up your Verb loops a bit more.]]

But maybe your table has decided, no TRAVEL, we're just here to KILL, LOOT, LEVEL-UP.

In Destiny the KILL Verb is incredibly versatile and involves a lot of Micro Verbs. Much like how in Magic the Gathering the the primary Verb is KILL, but that game gets all its juice in the smaller Micro Verbs (SUMMON, MILL, HEAL, SACRIFCE, BLOCK, etc.) so too does Destiny excel at making its KILL Verb incredibly engaging. This is because there's a host of Micro Verbs that live under Destiny's KILL umbrella:

• Bringing your best or most appropriate gear / build to a fight (GEAR PREP)
• Picking a sub-Class that best fits the mission and your needs (CLASS PREP)
• Managing a Super Meter that lets you cast an ultimate attack. (LIGHT MANAGEMENT)
• Managing Ammo / Reload times to make sure you're never dry in a Firefight. (AMMO MANAGEMENT)
• Generating Light at the right time (via Weapons, Supers, etc) to fill you and your Allie's Super Meter and confer other bonuses. (LIGHT GENERATION)
• Making sure your HP doesn't drop to zero (HP MANAGEMENT)
• Timing your abilities just right so you always have a well or grendade or melee right when you need it + absorbing Light to recoup these skills (COOLDOWN MANAGEMENT)
• Frantic navigation to avoid a host of Area of Effect attacks. (POSITIONING)
• Throwing grenades to manage where enemies can and can't go (TERRITORY DENIAL)
• Discovering and exploiting Enemy weak spots for maximum damage. (EXPLOIT WEAKNESS)
• Matching Element types to Enemy shields to cause a Shield Pop. (MATCH GAME)
• Using a Class Ability to support yourself and allies (SUPPORT)
• Solving ancillary puzzles, tossing balls, standing on plates or otherwise getting a Boss to be vulnerable to DMG, all while trying not to die (TASKS ඞ )
• Maximizing the DMG you deal using debuffs from grenades and certain weapons (DEBUFFS)
• Casting Supers to cause damage to enemies (DPS: SUPERS)
• Using Melees to deal even more DPS and amplify certain weapons (DPS: MELEE)
• Shooting your guns to deal DMG and end the encounter (DPS: GUNS)

That's a whole 17 Micro Verbs that make Destiny's combat an engaging firefight (not to mention things like aesthetics and the kinesthetics of gunplay). By juggling all these Micro Verbs we don't just feel like a badass killing machine, we are a badass killing machine. There's a very real sense of skill (and thus agency) in succeeding combat. It's why I'm proud of the Raid Jacket I have and why I absolutely adore Destiny's Dungeon design.

However there's a very real barrier to entry on that skill execution that comes down to two things: Physical accessibility and cognitive load. As a twitchy shooter with an erroneous lack of accessibility options, not everyone will be able to feel the thrill of being a Guardian (especially those who suffer from epilepsy, a very real problem the game and its community are still in debate over). Secondly it can be lot to keep that all in your head while under pressure in a frantic firefight. If only Destiny could be experienced at a pace that was slower and with systems that didn't require hyper fine tuned motor skills and flashing lights. Thus enter the TTRPG!

Before we compare this to the tactical choices on offer in LIGHT, I'd like to say that the rules of LIGHT are... certainly light. To compile this list I needed to cross reference extensively with the LUMEN SRD (something LIGHT never says you need) as well as dig through the Tag rules to begin finding any kind of juice. An example is that stuff like AoE exists, but there's no clear cut definition of how that manifests, it's largely left up to GM rulings which is a lot of extra moment-to-moment work on the GM's part (so much for reduced cognitive load). I also had to assume a lot of things, like that using a Power ticks off a box of Light (I think? Which I really like if that's the case but I'm genuinely not sure). Also I still cannot figure out what the Cast box does. Can Powers only be used once per Cast box? Is this a different mechanic altogether? I really don't know. [[Edit: I think I figured it out, it's from one of the game's Season Passes which I really wish the core rules would at least mention]]. Anyways, LIGHT's combat Micro Verbs in as generous a list I can put together:

• Choosing the Guns to bring on a Strike (GEAR PREP).
• Making sure you're at the right distance to fire your gun most optimally (POSITIONING). This doesn't really hold a candle to Destiny's 3D constant POSITIONING (and in my opinion is less interesting than grid based POSITIONING), but that's a limitation of the hardware (re: the brains as the table) if anything. I'm sure there are tables that can get a lot more juice out of Near / Close / Far distances than I can. However this undeniably makes the list, especially when you see how focal it is to making player Powers feel meaty.
• Some guns in LIGHT have the Reload tag, which means they "occasionally require time reloading" but generally speaking ammunition isn't a thing. (I'm not giving every individual Perk in each game their own Verb, because that'd just inflate the numbers for both games. Destiny's Dragonfly and Swashbuckler perks certainly guide the ways I play, but ultimately that really comes down to GEAR PREP).
• Making sure your HP doesn't drop to Zero (HP MANAGEMENT).
• Making sure you have enough Light to resurrect yourself and also cast Powers. I actually really like that these two get tied together (I think? It's not explicitly explained but I'm 90% sure) It's a neat little mechanic. (LIGHT MANAGEMENT)
• Near as I can tell there's only a single weapon Perk that generates Light (vs Destiny where there's tons of ways to do it) so that's off this list. You could argue based off the LUMEN SRD that Light is meant to be a drop, but LIGHT never once mentions that mechanic nor that you need to read the LUMEN SRD to understand its systems.
• Causing Harm to enemies via Shooting, Melee and Casting Supers (DPS: GUNS, DPS: MELEE, DPS: SUPERS)
• I'm not going to add picking which of your 3 core elements to use because it's not a choice, you're just going to pick whichever is highest. It's the flavor of your character and mildly influences GEAR PREP. It's certainly no MATCH GAME.
• You could argue that SUPPORT is present in LIGHT specifically with the Wych class (and a single one of the Colossus' Powers), but it's not a universal Verb in the same way that Destiny provides an arsenal of support options for Hunters, Titans and Warlocks. It's not a Verb for all Players, so it's not going on this list in the same way Perks aren't.
• You could also argue TERRITORY DENIAL could be implemented by tweaking AoEs, but again it's nothing as substantial as throwing down a Titan Shield at a choke-point or casting a long lasting AoE grenade on the point you're capturing.
• As a freebie I'm letting LIGHT take the (TASKS ඞ ) Verb since some of the suggested Strikes / Bounties have you capturing a Target, marking a vehicle, etx.

So that's 8 (maybe 9) Verbs as compared to Destiny's 17. And if we condense the DPS clusters on both sides you're looking at more like 6 vs 15. Oof. It's especially disappointing since some of Destiny's most engaging Verbs (TERITTORY DENIAL, EXPLOIT WEAKNESS) require a lot of GM legwork to add back in, while others are mostly absent (SUPPORT) or omitted entirely (MATCH GAME). Which leaves LIGHT's gameplay largely up to the GM to make fun for the Players to make decisions in.

 

LIGHT is Rules-light but in the same way most Seltzer is Sugar-light. Technically true, but at the cost of actual flavor. Especially when it's "Rules-light for Players, but the GM is constantly needing to make Rulings." Double especially when Combat is meant to be the fast and fluid focus so you can get to the next step ((which is just picking another mission for more combat)). There's not as much there there, and combat positioning frankly seems like a nightmare to handle. [[Edit: The positioning thing is admittedly a personal gripe and 100% a skill issue. LIGHT ultimately handles positioning well for its goals.]]

Compare this to other Rules-light combat systems like THE BOLD + THE BREATHLESS (what's with all the all-caps titles?) that not only clears up ranges by keeping things in simple units but also manages to add back in many of Destiny's best verbs (ex: MATCH GAME, WEAKNESS EXPLOIT).

TB+TB is brilliant because many of its abilities can be used explicitly to engage with either mode of play, the game's two main verbs: ACTION (or COMBAT really) and ADVENTURE. TB+TB honestly feels like a masterclass in Rules-light design that harnesses the power of focused Verbs to maximize their utility. That focus comes not only from specific Procedures, but also specific Rules with high Versatility. 

Just take for example how it handles Tags as compared to LIGHT:

((There's about 2 more pages of Tags for TB+TB, honestly I do wish they were all on one page, but they're all this specific, juicy, easy to manage and easy to hack))

Each Tag has a clear quantifiable outcome in terms of what they do, with the vaguest among them being "Entangle" which you could easily clean up by adding "Lower target's Move by X" - And if it's not immediately clear I still known exactly which stat I'm moving in which direction. They're open ended enough to be versatile to a variety of abilities and enemies, but specific enough to take a lot of mental load off of GMs and Players when it comes to adjudicating. Now compare this with how LIGHT handles Tags on its Guns:

((This is layout I'd want from TB+TB TBH. LIGHT does get some stuff really right.))

Perks like Fount, Burst and Persistence work great! But Perks like Vengeful are vague to the point of unhelpful. Do you know what More Effective means this context? Does that mean more dice? More successes? More Range? The only passage I can find on Gun Efficiency is: "There are 12 different types of gun in Light. Each type of gun has a base damage it deals when it hits, as well as the range that it is effective at. Guns may be fired at other ranges, but may not deal as much damage, or have the effect the Beacon wants." Which feels like the game telling me as the GM to simply feel it out. My brother in Christ if I was going to simply feel it out I would not be using a rulebook for combat. I don't mean to insinuate that this design is cheap or lazy, especially when it's abundantly clear that some of the design does get specific and is really compelling when it does so. Rather it's clear that LIGHT was written with a "Rulings not Rules" ethos that obfuscates the game's Micro Verbs, which is frustrating when the only real Macro Verbs in play are KILL / LOOT.

Marcia B. recently pointed me to a blog post on Distant Lands called F*ck-You Design which is a phenomenal (and topical) read, that illustrates this point excellently. An excerpt of Alex's wisdom:

"In contrast to good or good-enough design, I want to talk about something I call fuck-you design. Fuck-you design uses the OSR’s imaginative, DIY ethos as justification for big honking holes in its design structure. Specifically, it leaves gaps around important processes or concepts whose real-world counterparts are abstract, complex, or nonexistent. HP, XP, and magic rules are examples of systems devised to provide grounding for such matters, that fuck-you design often omits in the name of minimalism. Fuck-you design will proudly frame its ruleset as a “starting point” or set of building blocks to create the game you want to play, leaving to the reader/player some of the most challenging and essential design tasks. It will incite the reader to follow the fiction and use their imagination. Naturally, why else do we play if not do just that? To those who ask, but how do I situate these question in the fiction? What am I meant to imagine here? These are difficult game design questions, and this design proclaims: Fuck you, figure it out."

Ostensibly F*ck-You Design offers Verbs without the Rules to support them. Direction without actual directions.

Obviously I don't think LIGHT takes such a combative stance. But when the game's Legendary Guns clearly display a vision for how elegantly tactical this game could be, I'm left wanting that clarity of vision in systems like the Perks and Descriptions of combat, if only as a core ruleset to work from. Maybe that's available in the Season Passes, but those feel like things that aught to be part of a game's Core Systems (especially when that core system is the deciding factor on whether or not someone might purchase one of those Season Passes).

Moreover I would certainly not define such a Feel-It-Out method as tactical. (Which granted LIGHT never once bills itself as. Meanwhile LUMEN uses the phrase Tactical-lite and I'm honestly at a loss for what that's intended to mean). To me tactics is about having clear Verbs that I can decide between, risks and rewards, decisions. 

One of the best bits of design advice I've gotten is that a decision is literally to kill your options (heh "kill"). It is to say "I am going to X at the sacrifice of Y." I am going to reload at the sacrifice of DPS. I am going to work on Territory Denial at the sacrifice of Support. I am going to use all my abilities now at the sacrifice of having them available later.

Deciding to spend my Light on a CASTING POWER versus saving it to RESURRECT in case I go down? That's tactical. That's rules-light. That's clear and thematic and in my professional opinion it fucks. Similarly some of these Perks are really solid (or could be with just a touch more clarity so I'm not having to make a ruling every time we encounter a new one). And to be honest I don't think I'd be critiquing LIGHT's combat this hard if it didn't feel so close to something really exciting.

Alright, alright, but maybe you don't want your COMBAT/KILL Verbs to be tight and you yearn for a more OSR styled free-wheeling approach. The key there is that most of those games give you Macro verbs to use as alternatives to COMBAT/KILL. Rules-light OSR stuff like MORK BORG (again with the all-caps) have very few Micro Verbs for KILL[[*6]], but KILL is just one verb you can use to SURVIVE. And SURVIVE TO SEE THE END really is the operative Verb for MORK BORG. In fact MORK BORG is a great example of the world being full of various Verbs, since you're not really trying to LOOT anything so much as you WALLOW in the filth of a dying world. ((And even if you do fall into the KILL-LOOT-LEVEL-UP loop, you're still ostensibly playing scum who are awaiting the final judgement of the end of the world. No 1-20 God Slaying campaign to be found here)).

This isn't to say a system focused purely on combat needs lots of Micro Verbs to be good. Clean tight tactical rules can make a system sing even if it has 2 Verbs. Take Chess, the primary Verb is CAPTURE while its only other Verb is MOVE (if you're feeling metaphysical you could add PREDICT, as in predicting what your opponent may do next. But so much of games is about PREDICT / RISK / EXECUTE / REWARD so we're not quite going to go that macro here). Despite Chess only having these 2 Verbs, 1 Procedure and ~12 rules total, it's a blast to play. Am I saying Chess is a TTRPG? More on this later. [[Spoiler: I will never elaborate further on this.]]

PART 6 - DOES SYSTEM MATTER?

That title is bait. I've never been on the Forge, I don't even fully understand the System Matters debate. What I do understand is that Verbs matter, and different procedures and rules highlight different Verbs. Verbs are your funnel for how you want players to interact with your game and where you'll be able to design and hack the easiest. Rules are important and can mean the difference between your Verbs singing (like in The Bold + The Breathless) or your Verbs floundering. Procedures help you better curate what Verbs you want your Players using (something as simple as Maharlika's Trade and Fiesta phases or something as fresh as Rod, Reel and Fists' main Verbs being FISH, EXPLORE, SUPPORT). Verbs are a way of looking at the goals of your own game, or dissecting the goals of another.

Verbs matter because they can be an invaluable tool in design. Consider what you want your Verbs to be before you start adding Rules and Procedures that may run counter to your Verb goals. Consider how many games offer the KILL->LOOT->LEVEL-UP loop. Consider the Micro Verbs that can make your Macro Verbs feel compelling. Consider (if your table wants a KILL->LOOT->LEVEL-UP loop) what Verbs you may want to add or replace. Consider the Verbs that define your inspirations, and what Verbs can only be explored on the tabletop.

Verbs are flavor. And while not an explicit part of any design, they should be an explicit consideration when picking what mechanics, procedures and systems would fit best for the kind of table you're trying to cultivate.

END NOTES

It should be noted I've been playing Destiny for like... A long time (Like 1180+ hours since the Alpha of D1 long time). I own all the collector's editions, I read a lot of the lore, I play through all the story events. It's a game that is very near and dear to my heart. But also holy shit. I think only when you really love something can you see it for all its flaws, and it bums me out that LIGHT never iterated on these flaws and instead stripped away some things Destiny did well in the name of expediency.

Truthfully, if I were to adapt Destiny, I'd try to adapt as many of its Micro Verbs for combat as possible, especially MATCH GAME and LIGHT GENERATION. I'm probably biased in this because my pursuit of adapting Destiny's systems more or less lead me down a 5 year long rabbit hole that's currently got me making a Mecha Tactics game with a literal bar that fills up. A game which turned out to be very much not Rules-Light, but very Rules-Versatile. But frankly I think you could hack TB+TB pretty easily to suit a rules-and-rulings-light Destiny styled loop simply by adding in the Light mechanic. Or you could probably clean up LIGHT because there's almost something truly great there it just needs more work and specificity.

Also I thought it was worth mentioning the video game concept of Versatile Verbs. Mark Brown of Game Maker's Toolkit has an excellent little video on Versatile Verbs in video games. I feel like that ties into a lot of this, it's why I started using the word Rules-Versatile. But we'll have to save that for another day.

Thanks again for reading this big long blog post!! This (I shit you not) took a full 14 hours to write and edit and I still feel like I could add more. Hopefully you enjoyed, learned a thing and maybe were inspired in some way!

[[*1 : Hey Spencer and/or fans of LUMEN / LIGHT. I just wanted to say that I honestly don't hate LIGHT and have grown a kind of fondness for it, especially after writing this article. In fact it's because it's sooooo close to the kind of TTRPG that I'd love that I'm critiquing it so hard. I'm literally planning on watching the developer commentary tomorrow, and will probably be picking up both the season passes after my next pay check. Thanks for bearing with me and I hope this hasn't dampened your enjoyment of these TTRPGs! Who knows maybe this'll lead to a LIGHT 2.0 one day... Needless to say I'd have a lot of ideas on where that could go ((Let's just hope the Caba- I mean the Corvus don't wipe our Vaults this time.)) ]]

[[*2 : Additionally some of you may know one of my favorite games Blazing Hymn actually runs on LUMEN. Cat is an incredibly talented writer who made a brilliant TTRPG on top of the LUMEN skeleton, not really because of anything that system is particularly doing or any Verbs its particularly postulating more than any other open ended "building blocks" SRD systems. She added a lot of compelling Verbs like SACRIFICE and added a whole Song mechanic that completely re-contextualizes the GEAR SELECTION Verb. She also ditches the LOOT Verb for SURVIVE. This game is not for power fantasies (as LUMEN is designed), it's for glorious tragedies. If you take a look at her other work on the SRD for Harmony Drive, you'll notice Cat excels at making systems with compelling Verbs. Frankly I wonder what Blazing Hymn could've been if it'd been written in Harmony Drive or another bespoke system by Cat. But hey, maybe LUMEN acted like a kind of grey box that helped accelerate her design process! I really should ask her what compelled her to choose it... ]]

[[*3 : OK so someone is going to come in here and say Borderlands tries to be somewhat anti-capitalist ((re: All the antagonists are big corporations)) and admittedly it is a pretty solid take on what could easily be considered a kind of Cyberpunk fiction. I still have only played Borderlands 1, 2 and the Pre-Sequel, and I could see where this argument is coming from. That said by and large, the main focal goal of Borderlands is to be a badass and get loot, and you need only look at the marketing to confirm that.]]

[[*4 : LIGHT actually gives some examples of Strikes (missions) that don't require combat, and frankly it feels like an after-thought given the system gives players almost no good Verbs with which to pursue those non-combat goals, beyond the igniters of their 3 core stats. ((ex: Pyre: powerful, emotional, sweeping)) Which explain how you do an action but not what actions you could meaningfully take within the scope of your super powered character. They're more Adjectives than Verbs. Which is cool if you have both, but requires more work from the GM and deep knowledge of the setting if you only have the former.]]

[[*5 : OK yes you did by some accounts KILL and LOOT the fishies but it's so much more than that. I'm going to go ahead and say there's a world of difference between catching a limited number of Fish to save your village and me mowing down literal hundreds (thanks Destiny bounties for keeping track of that!) of Eliksni to chase a pirate treasure and hopefully get a better gun with which to mow down hundreds more Eliksni. ]]

[[*6 : Even MORK BORG actually has some very specific rulings for the KILL verb, like Enemy Morale breaking (which happens under specific quantifiable circumstances as opposed to simply "When the tides of battle shift.") ]]