The "Whys" of Breathless

A little behind the scene behind the system that spawned over 200 games

Yesterday, I played a game of Breathless with Yuigaron, Nordaim, and Spencer and this morning, Nordaim tagged me on Twitter and asked this:

Capture of the tweet

I decided to take the time to properly answer this here.

Where the mechanics and rules inspired by any other TTRPGs

At that point in time, I was still relatively new to the scene and the hobby in general and I had only read 3 RPGs: Fate, Blades in the Dark, and 2400. Wild combination, right?

Blades in the Dark inspired me to put a lot of emphasis on consequences as a way to lead to dramatic stories and its "push yourself" mechanic inspired me to add the "stunt" mechanic you can find in Breathless.

Fate encouraged me to write the game in a way that forces the players to heavily focus on the fiction over anything else. Plus, the "compels" work was a big inspiration as a way to prompt the player to accept cool complications in exchange for a mechanic benefit with the "catch your breath" mechanic.

Lastly, I was obsessed with how cool 2400 and its SRD were. How thing this small could pack such a punch. That's why I built Breathless as a pamphlet. I wanted something that was self-contained (mechanics + guidelines + tables + character sheet), easily printable at home, and useful at the table in as many situations as possible.

Some people think that Breathless' skill as a die and dice degradation mechanics were inspired by Savage Worlds or The Black Hack. The truth is, I had never read those games. I saw 2400's core resolution mechanic (roll a die ranging from d4 to d12, spread the result over 1-2, 3-4, 5+) and thought it was great, effective and simple. That being said, the part in Breathless where the die you used always steps down and you need to "catch your breath" to reset it, but this adds a new complication was something that I added to the equation.

Why do your stats and equipment degrade with use?

I wanted Breathless to be the ultimate The Last of Us TTRPG. In this video game, everything you do makes you more tired. It is a game about a harsh journey, and even the tools you find are ephemeral and will eventually break or run out.

Some people think that a tactical RPG involves minis, maps, and so on. In my mind, Breathless is one of the most tactical engines there is, simply because skills and items degrade overtime. You have to make very clever and tactical choices in the fiction and use everything at your disposal to move forward in the story.

If your only skill that isn't a d4 is "think," which is set at a d6, will you risk "catching your breath" at this very moment, or will you try to find a way to use "think" in a way that solves the current problem? That's the game engine forcing you to be tactical, to think smart about all your options, since you don't have a lot to begin with.

The coolest part of game design is when you can take a system and reuse it in many different scenarios. In Fate, "everything is an aspect," and in Blades, "everything is a clock." In Breathless, "everything is a die that steps up or down." This is something I've pushed to the extreme in Stoneburner and Tales of the Burned Stones, but the idea originated from here.

Why include the loot roll?

The easy answer is: I wanted to reinforce the game's themes as much as possible. Looting is such a core part of zombie survival horror media that not including it as a proper mechanic would have been a total miss on my end. Mechanically, it also serves to give more options to the player. Since you can only use your skills and stunts to a certain extent, looking for items and using them at the opportune moment is actually so fun to do.

Over time, we all grow as people and game designers. When I reread Breathless, there are things that I want to change based on things I've learned. The loot roll is one of them. I feel like the fact that nothing happens if you roll a 2-14 during a loot check is kind of boring. I think every single action and mechanic should serve in moving the story forward, and that doesn't do this.

In the near future, I'll update Breathless and its SRD to adapt the loot mechanic to something Stoneburner and Tales of the Burned Stones do, which I feel is way more in theme with the rest of the Breathless system, makes the mechanic more predictable, and also way more fun.

Here’s a preview of how those two games handle this and what the Breathless text will eventually look like.

Looting a location gives you a chance to find items such as weapons, heirlooms, resources, or even artifacts. You start with a d12 loot die, which steps down after each usage. When you loot, roll your current loot die and interpret the result. You may continue to use the loot die when it is a d4, at your own risks. To reset your loot die to its initial rating, you need to rest.

• On a 1-2, trouble is here…

• On a 3-4, there’s trouble ahead…

• On a 5-6, you get a d6 depletable item.

• On a 7-8, you get a d8 depletable item.

• On a 9-10, you get a d10 depletable item.

• On a 11-12, you get a d12 depletable item.

One Last Thing…

And that's it! I hope you liked this little behind-the-scenes look.

Now, tell me what you think in the comments, and for more on Breathless head over to the official website.

What other kinds of mechanics could Breathless have to reinforce zombie survival-related media? Do you like the new loot mechanic present in Stoneburner? If you were to make a game with Breathless, what would it be about?