I was on usenet with the very a naive intention of promoting my new D20 book, and needless to say, like a tourist straying off the path in a visit to HELL, I got sucked into a billion different ridiculous and bitter arguments about literally everything.
One of the stupid arguments I got sucked into against my will (I am helpless here) was this ridiculous debate about the DnD combat system, which I personally find both complicated AND unrealistic. (Perfect example of the wrong way to do it, IMHO.) Though it's ok for what it is, it does not do realistic combat.
Anyway, as an example of a better way of doing things, I cited TROS. As soon as I explained there was a dice pool mechanic they all started screaming "Death Spiral" at me. I tried to explain that the two exchanges per melee round (especially) the SA's, the way armor works, and the various combat options all prevented this from being the case, but they don't believe me and spit numbers at me, claiming that the system encourages "kamikaze" play, i.e. spending all dice in one attack.
As an instinctive min-maxer I remember actually trying this in the few TROS I have played and I got creamed. So I don't think it really has a death spiral mechanic at all. Injuries do have a cumulative effect, so the first person hit is at a disadvantage, but even when that happens the fight isn't over. IMHO. Anyway, please explain this so I can enlighten these DnD heretics. I am out of my depth on TROS having only played a few times so far, but I this death spiral thing is just a cop-out, an easy way to claim that no other system but THEIR system could possibly work. Why I feel the need to argue this even further, I can't explain, hell is hot, but you love the burn... and the defeat of wrongheaded evil! Hell, they are never going to buy my stupid book anyway, I might as well have fun with them...
DB
One word my friend.
Counter.
That typically f**ks up people that do full CP attacks.
I mean, you *DO* get to use the opponent's successes on the next attack.. and they'd be defenseless. (assuming the counter was successful..)
Also, take any D&Der's neurotic zealotry with a grain of salt. Often-times they are too feeble-minded to notice that they're missing out on something a HELL of alot better.
And since when the hell isn't D&D a game that encourages kamikazee play? Nuhhhmmmm?? Last time I played, our group went up against what I beleive was a level 20 demon. It couldnt kill us. I remember being eaten by a gigantic worm.. and I carved myself out of it's stomach. I also remember killing a giant turtle of some sort.. as it was trying to chomp me in half..
What I really think, is that they don't like a game where their skill as a player(and hence, their character's skill and strategy..) is potentially fatal to their characters. If their skills/strategy fails, character is dead.. etc..
D&D players also seem to be heavy into the character longevity issue.
I was all of the above and more as a D&D player... Pathetically much more.. :-\
Put those comic-book playstyle loving idiots in their place. The 'kewl powerz' shit is for fantasy settings.. and TROS *might* just be too realistic for their tastes. And, like a liberal that thinks everyone is wrong but them...well, you see my point.
-Ingenious
1. If someone throws all dice in an attack at you, you can buy initiative and hit them first. Since they overcommitted, they don't have any dice to buy it back. Your first hit could decide the fight before they even get their turn.
2. You don't usually know how big your opponent's dice pool is. If someone throws all dice against a superior opponent, they will be left wide open in the second exchange and probably get killed. If they had been more cautious they would have been able to take advantage of the TN 4 full evade to get the heck out of there when they realize in the second exchange that their opponent's dice pool is bigger than theirs and they are probably going to lose if they stay in the fight.
3. You are increasing the number of dice in play by not splitting the pool, so the margins of success either way (from your hit, or from an opponent using a counter) become potentially larger. This means that instead of injuries, hits will more often result in immediate deaths. In the long run this is worse for players than the GM, since a PC death is much more significant than an NPC death. In general, increased variability works against the players.
This was also a major point in the discussion of the recent TROS 'review' on RPG.net
funny, my players who all where all DnD munchkins type players, really love the change that TRoS has giving them, the love the fast and deadly way TRoS, and all the freedom it gives when making your character type, instead of classes and levels and such, they like they way how "human" there characters are.
Anyway there are a few die-hard DnD players and Rolemaster fanatic's in my club, and the all cry that TRoS is to complicated, my players has actually defended the game, saying that then they are simply to stupid to play.
Quote from: IngeniousOne word my friend.
Counter.
That typically f**ks up people that do full CP attacks.
I mean, you *DO* get to use the opponent's successes on the next attack.. and they'd be defenseless. (assuming the counter was successful..)
assuming also that the defender is as skilled as the attacker. If you have 10 dice to defend against a 14 dice attack, counter is a poor option.
as for buying initiative - well, they can spend dice from their attack to buy it back. If you are agile, perceptive and wielding a rapier, sure - but if that description fits the other guy better, you have poor odds.
so what do you do when you have a 10dice CP and the the huge, poleaxe-wielding barbarian charges you with all his 14 dice?
quite often, you die - if red/red you get a 50/50 chance (on avg.) - but that's the kamikaze option. (If you can do an evasive strike, it's another story, though).
The 'coward' option (my favorite) is a full evade with all dice except one (if you have same reach, anyway). (if you're sure he spent _all_ his dice): if you lose you die anyway, if you win you live another round. But: if you tie, he has to pass init to you (no dice left), and you get a 'free' very puny attack or short stop, and have the init for the next round.
Kamikaze is not necessarily a bad option, but being predictable is.
I'd noticed this trend in our Midnight to TROS game... the character who got into combat the most tended to dump all his dice into the first exchange and throw red. We're talking 20 dice (a regular feature in our games.. they're SAs run hot all night sometimes). So i sat on it for a while.. let him get in some "easy kills" (kills are never easy in TROS i say)...
then tonight I pulled both a Counter (he was lucky we both scored 10 successes each) and I bought initiative. THe initiative buying screwed him good though... scared the bejeezus out of him .... funnily enough after that he started to hold back a few dice ;)
cheers
Jason K..
Quote from: bottleneck
as for buying initiative - well, they can spend dice from their attack to buy it back. If you are agile, perceptive and wielding a rapier, sure - but if that description fits the other guy better, you have poor odds.
Hi bottleneck, where is the attacker given the option of taking dice he's already declared on attack and using it to buy initiative instead? I thought that once you declared your dice you were committed to following through.
Quote from: bergh
Anyway there are a few die-hard DnD players and Rolemaster fanatic's in my club, and the all cry that TRoS is to complicated, my players has actually defended the game, saying that then they are simply to stupid to play.
Heh, that a rolemaster player would complain that a system is too advanced o_O
TROS does have a death spiral. Intentionally. And thank goodness.
See, the D&D players' complaints are all based around the idea that the strategy of play is based on resource management - Hit Points, most importantly. If you put a death spiral into that sort of game, then you lose all ability to plan based on HP, and there goes half of player tactical choice - when to fight, and when to flee.
TROS, OTOH, has it's tactics in the selection of maneuvers and use of dice pool. Basically, getting hit once is a failure that's likely to make you lose. Not always, and that's cool that one can come from behind. But it realistically handicaps the injured. Thus most of the real tactics occur before the death spiral strikes.
Now, the death spiral usually strikes early, relative to D&D where you may have to wait hours to be out of HP. Which is the better case?
TROS gives you more tactics, more realism, and more drama. Most of the D&Ders won't consider the SA effect. That is, they're used to character plot immunity coming in the form of Hit Points. In TROS it comes in the form of SAs firing when the character is involved in what's important to them. So you get the same effect in terms of survival (I could even argue that for an experienced player that TROS is more survivable), but you get it much more dramatically.
So, most of the claims come from a missapplication of assumptions from D&D players of their game's ideals to TROS. As such the analysis can be ignored. Teaching people this is very difficult, OTOH, and I don't advocate attempting it. Trying to convince happy players of one game of the merits of a very different game is likely to end up with nothing but misunderstanding. Because they don't really want to understand.
Not to mention that this is very much the Usenet condition. People are there to socialize and decry things they don't understand for the most part.
Mike
Quote from: kenjibQuote from: bottleneck
as for buying initiative - well, they can spend dice from their attack to buy it back. If you are agile, perceptive and wielding a rapier, sure - but if that description fits the other guy better, you have poor odds.
Hi bottleneck, where is the attacker given the option of taking dice he's already declared on attack and using it to buy initiative instead? I thought that once you declared your dice you were committed to following through.
Yeah, I had to raise a brow at that, too. Once dice are declared, they're committed. Else, where's the risk in such a strategy? Your observations on Counter were right on, but I have to take exception to this one.
Give TROS hit points!
No, not really, but I'm sure that got your attention!
I'm sure most of you are wondering where I am going with this thought. I'm the first person in my group to slam hit points. I have trouble wrapping them around my brain. When I have run games with hit points, I find they interfere with my suspension of disbelief.
On the flip side of things, not everyone wants heavy detail in damage systems. While the TROS system is a fascinating depiction of wound theory, looking up the individual wound on a chart and rolling the die and figuring out what the impact does is slooooow. TROS has an amazingly fun duelling system which in some opinions (that of my gaming group, at least), can get slow in the actual clash of arms. And that is 99% of the time because of the chart-based damage system that the game uses.
Also, not everyone wants a death spiral system. While it can be fun, I have to admit that sometimes I prefer more heroic battles. While the spiritual attributes can often help an injured player make that last gasp of effort, the cumulative penalties can be overwhelming.
So... telling a player to drop 25 hit points does go faster than looking up the damage location IV chart versus crushing and rolling a d6 to determine effect, then adding or subtracting bleeding or shock values. Is the TROS system more realistic than the hit point system? Definately! Does the tedious nature of determining injury ruin the exciting tempo of battle after a while? It does for me (your own mileage may vary).
Recently I've had the pleasure of running Mutants and Masterminds, a D20 superheroes game. Hit points have been nixed, and you just have a damage save. As you fail your damage saves, the difficulty of saving against future damage goes up by one. Also, if you fail too much in the first place, you can be stunned, injured, KO'd, or even killed. Its much faster than hit points, ten times faster than my college era Champions preference, and about 10 times as fast as taking injury with TROS.
So... considering the excellent job done with TROS when it comes to trading and defending against blows, and quantifying the effect of armor and weapon damage styles, is it not possible that a leaner TROS damage system could be created? Not necessarily the M&M system, but a new novel approach? One that does not have the admitted depth of the current TROS damage system, but that accelerates play?
And the nice thing about a leaner, simpler system is that simpler systems are easier to modify. So if you wanted to run a heroic game where the question wasn't what is worth dying for, but rather who can nab the greater glory, then that would perhaps be easier to create.
For the TROS Wuxia game I've thought of running I've had a couple ideas in this respect. I'll print them here.
1. Have every point over your toughness + armor (or toughness *2) for the Wuxia game) subtract 1 from your dice pool. When you run out of dice, you collapse. This is my death spiral method.
2. You can take as money points over your soak value as you have total in Spirit Attributes. This makes battle a contest of will.
Thoughts? Comments? Personal Attacks?
QuoteWhile the spiritual attributes can often help an injured player make that last gasp of effort, the cumulative penalties can be overwhelming.
I think that the point is that, in play, SAs are in force usually from the first blow - it'd be somewhat uncommon for things to change mid-battle so that SAs would only be available at the end.
The point is that with SAs the PCs should usually outclass their opponents, meaning that even injury will be pretty rare. So you don't have to worry about a death spiral because you're not getting wounded. This allows for very heroic play. Claims that players shy away from combat in TROS, or that they die too often are just unfounded.
As for the speed, well if the PCs have lots of SAs firing, then they'll tend to go through their enemies very quickly, no? Yes, the handling time for TROS may be higher for a round, but when you only have to do one fifth of the rounds, TROS can be substantively faster. When TROS is long, it's dramatic enough that most people think that it supports itself.
If you're playing out "balanced" battles that are taking forever as "sample" fights to see how the system works, you're not seeing how it works in play. If you are playing, and SAs aren't coming up, then consider that you may want to change your GMing tactics so that they do. Because when they do, the game flies.
Mike
May you take dice from the pool you already have "signed" for full attack, to buy initiative? or may you not?
Quote from: berghMay you take dice from the pool you already have "signed" for full attack, to buy initiative? or may you not?
Not really on topic - I'd refer you to this thread:http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=10276
Mike
I have to agree that, much as I like TRoS' sombat system, the actual mechanics for determining and assigning damage are kind of tedious. Well more than kind of...
I'd love to see a more elegant solution that retained as much of the realisim as possible, but was a tad quicker. I've thought about just dropping the D6 location roll adn using the simplified damage tables from the quickstart rules, but since I've yet to actually play TROS with my full group I haven't made any conclusions...
Basically I'm waiting to see how much the more accurate damage system really adds to the enjoyment of the game. I found it plenty fun and scary just fighting duels with the QS damage tables so...
Quote from: berghMay you take dice from the pool you already have "signed" for full attack, to buy initiative? or may you not?
No, you may not. You've committed them to attacking.
That's a very good reason not to over commit and throw all your dice into the attack. As others have already mentioned, if you do that to me, and I simply attack back and steal initiative, you may well be screwed.
Brian.
Thanks Brian!
That is a very clear answer, wow! doing full out attacks are dangerous!
i think i got confused becsoue in the Combat simulator you have programmed, you can take dices from the pool you already have commited for your attack.
sorry for confusing everyone.
I guess I played too much on the combat sim, too.
but thanks for clearing it up for me!
kamikaze is quite stupid, then! (and thus tRoS is not a death spiral that encourages kamikaze play).
Uhhh whoah. He's right. Whatdya know!
Also, Brian, your combat simulator is busted. It can't calculate reflex + proficiency. 6+6 does not equal 6...if ya know what I mean. I found a solution though by upping my proficiency to 12 lol.. which results of course in a CP of 12...
Ambrose Marchais gains +2CP for his aggressive stance
Ambrose Marchais must pay an additional 2 dice to attack because he's out of range.
Ambrose Marchais takes a swing at Gol Captain's arms/hands with 13 dice...
Gol Captain gains +2CP for his aggressive stance
Gol Captain tries to hook his weapon under Ambrose Marchais's legs, tripping him with 5 dice...
Determining who gets to swing first...
(TN 6) 2, 2, 2, 2, 17, 7 - Result: 2
(TN 7) 8, 5, 23, 8, 2, 8 - Result: 4
Gol Captain attacks first...
Ambrose Marchais can attempt to steal initiative if he wishes...
(TN 6) 3, 6, 6, 1 - Result: 2
(TN 9) 5, 2, 3, 4, 4, 1 - Result: 0
Initiative successfully stolen!
Ambrose Marchais spends some dice from his attack pool, and doesn't get as many to attack with...
(TN 6) 7, 15, 2, 19 - Result: 3
Ambrose Marchais rolls and gets 3 successes.
---------------------------------------
Attack successes: 3
Strength: 7
Weapon Damage: 3
---------------------------------------
Toughness: 7
Armor: 2
---------------------------------------
Ambrose Marchais hits Gol Captain with a total damage rating of 4... (Arm broken, lots of blood)
So, in all actuality.. Brian's words are like John F'in Kerry's. He says one thing here, but his software shows something else. Which way is correct though?
Oh, did you vote for that 87 billion before you voted against it too Senator Leybourne?? :-D hahahahahahahahahahha
you all might not be laughing.. but I am.
Political jokes aside, red/red or kamikazee or pre-empting in TROS is always risky.. some might call it dumb. Only if you fail.. if you succeed.. you're either lucky.. or smart.
-Ingenious
Quote from: Mike HolmesQuoteWhile the spiritual attributes can often help an injured player make that last gasp of effort, the cumulative penalties can be overwhelming.
I think that the point is that, in play, SAs are in force usually from the first blow - it'd be somewhat uncommon for things to change mid-battle so that SAs would only be available at the end.
The point is that with SAs the PCs should usually outclass their opponents, meaning that even injury will be pretty rare. So you don't have to worry about a death spiral because you're not getting wounded. This allows for very heroic play. Claims that players shy away from combat in TROS, or that they die too often are just unfounded.
As for the speed, well if the PCs have lots of SAs firing, then they'll tend to go through their enemies very quickly, no? Yes, the handling time for TROS may be higher for a round, but when you only have to do one fifth of the rounds, TROS can be substantively faster. When TROS is long, it's dramatic enough that most people think that it supports itself.
If you're playing out "balanced" battles that are taking forever as "sample" fights to see how the system works, you're not seeing how it works in play. If you are playing, and SAs aren't coming up, then consider that you may want to change your GMing tactics so that they do. Because when they do, the game flies.
Mike
An excellent counter argument, especially on heroics, but it doesn't really address the wounds issue:
1. Injuries are not just delivered to the players. Injuries delivered by the players to others also take up time.
2. The issue with wounds has little to do with long combats in TROS. The combat system is exciting enough that people like combats. The problem is a matter of looking up in what we consider tedious charts what happens when weapons hit meat and bone.
Now keep in mind my group hates charts. And I'm one of them. TROS basically keeps you chart free unless you start handling terrain rolls (and you can just memorize a few numbers here) or you start handling damage. Then you start into an effort playing with the charts. To us, nothing kills the drama of a game or battle than looking up crunchy bits on a chart. It should all be on the character sheet, in my oh-so-not-humble opinion.
Now before you slap me down and tell me how exciting it is for you to read the charts, or how fundamentally simple they are, keep in mind that my feelings on the matter represent a sizeable fraction of the gaming community. And by having a complex damage system TROS limits its business to a smaller customer group.
Which is a shame. Because TROS is an excellent game. The fighting mechanic rocks and can be used in any sort of setting or gaming style. In addition, the spiritual attributes are fascinating. The skill system is pretty decent. And the magic system is wonderfully controversial. And I think that having two damage systems, one called
'Dramatic' and one called
'Realistic', would only serve to increase the sales of the game and the size of the fan base.
I just went and read the threads that spawned this discussion over in rec.games.frp.dnd and man.. i remember why I left that place. such an insular vicious mob aren't they?
anyways FWIW I don't really have that much of an issue with the time combat takes or the death spiral thing. Sure when you're wounded you get worse at doing things. And sure you can dump your pool on the first exchange.. but as a GM i'm learning new tricks every session on how to combat that and people are learning how to fight smart in the process..
i'd call it artefact of coming from D&D that htese people are concerned with that sort of thing. play it by the rules and within the spirit of the rules and the game is sublimely cool...
Quote from: Eamon1. Injuries are not just delivered to the players. Injuries delivered by the players to others also take up time.
2. The issue with wounds has little to do with long combats in TROS. The combat system is exciting enough that people like combats. The problem is a matter of looking up in what we consider tedious charts what happens when weapons hit meat and bone.
Oh no, don't get me wrong. It's a standard part of theory here that search and handle time are problematic. Charts themselves aren't good.
The thing is that the death spiral mitigates this somewhat. That's why I said, "thank goodness" when I mentioned it had one. Rarely do you have to look up more than a couple of wounds per battle. Because wounds make battles end. Often I have characters just drop their weapons after the first wound if it's serious enough. Heck, if he's a mook, and I see a level 3 or higher wound, I don't even check the chart, he's just out of the fight. We can figure out what happened to him later if it becomes important for some reason.
QuoteAnd I think that having two damage systems, one called 'Dramatic' and one called 'Realistic', would only serve to increase the sales of the game and the size of the fan base.
Hey, I'm all for shortcuts. But I don't think your proposition makes things any more dramatic. I think it insulates the player from the danger.
If you want an easier method, then just have standard effects for different levels of wounds (probably easy to work out, something like 2 permenant losses, and three stun per point of hit or something), and apply them with whatever narration you like. Simple, no chart check, and you get to have fun making up your own wounds (I've suggested something like this for players who wanted more variability in the wounding).
But my point remains that the combat as is in play is very dramatic, in every experience that I've had with the game. Not because players were constantly on the verge of losing their characters, but instead because they were empowered by what they were fighting for. You feel not only the desperation of combat, but the character's feelings towards, say, his lady love whom he's fighting for.
Mike
The discussion on Usenet has been at times interesting, if uncivil. Evening folks. I thought I would come here and see if anyone would answer the one or two questions that I posed, hoping Bob would offer an answer from the complete rules. I apologize for coming in late. I've been pretty busy keeping up with the original thread, but it seems to have moved back into subjects I'm not good at ;)
As a caveat, the only rules that I have to work from are what is available in the downloads section of the TROS website, which includes the 2002 quick start PDF, and the full damage tables.
Quote from: Drifter Bob
As an instinctive min-maxer I remember actually trying this in the few TROS I have played and I got creamed. So I don't think it really has a death spiral mechanic at all. Injuries do have a cumulative effect, so the first person hit is at a disadvantage, but even when that happens the fight isn't over.
I'm honestly not sure that you knew at the time you wrote this exactly what a death spiral mechanic was. If you did, you did not demonstrate a command of the term during what few exchanges we had. Even posters on this thread agree with the existence of the effect.
Quote from: Mike Holmes
See, the D&D players' complaints are all based around the idea that the strategy of play is based on resource management - Hit Points, most importantly. If you put a death spiral into that sort of game, then you lose all ability to plan based on HP, and there goes half of player tactical choice - when to fight, and when to flee.
Actually, most of my experience and complaints stem from my time playing Shadowrun 1st and 2nd edition. Shadowrun has a horrible death spiral mechanic that is tied in with large dice pools. Once people started to take damage, it became progressively harder to continue without fatality. Even a light wound turned a minor gunfight into a difficult encounter due to the loss of skill and increased target numbers. Considering that there were TWO damage tracks with cumulative effects. Gah. I understand that some people find that mechanic to be fun. I honestly don't know how.
OK, with that out of the way, I have a couple of questions.
Assume a pair of fighters, both with 12 CP. Armor is not relevant to this question unless the attack is a thrust. My weapon is a 2H bastard sword.
Also assume that I'm very gung-ho and make an overhand cut to Zone IV. I like the thrust better, but the other guy might be wearing armor.
With a TN of 6, I'll average six successes. What can you do to counter it?
If you do nothing, counting on armor to protect you (yeah, pretty stupid), I've just scored a brawn+3+6 hit. The armor table in the QS rules can't be complete, but that's still likely a 4 damage hit. It looks like the worst result I can expect is 8 shock, but there's a pretty good chance that the shock is 10, 12, 13, or ALL.
That leads to question 1: Are shock losses assessed immediately? Or do they wait until the next round?If you block with half your pool, depending on your TN, you might reduce the margin to 2.
That leads to the second question: Does shock damage to your CP come off of dice you haven't spent yet, or just off the top of your pool, assuming that the answer to my first question is yes?If you attempt to counter, you spend two CP for the attempt, and are left with 10 at best. You have to score slightly above average in order to meet my average. Even better if you hold a die back.
That leads to question 3. Assume that a counter in those circumstances is successful and you net 6 free successes on your next attack...but don't have any dice left in your pool. Do you still get to attack? I assume yes, but I've seen games with odder artifacts.What other options exist in the full rule set, and what are the odds of success?
As long as the game pits success against success, it's mathematically fairly silly to not attack all out once you have enough of a CP to punish someone who doesn't block all out. If you like cutting weapons, you choose an axe to take advantage of the lower ATN. If you like thrusting, you take a rapier to take advantage of the lower ATN. Either way, you now have above average odds on generating successes, forcing equivalent responses.
QuoteOnce people started to take damage, it became progressively harder to continue without fatality. Even a light wound turned a minor gunfight into a difficult encounter due to the loss of skill and increased target numbers.
You speak as if this is a bad thing????
As a long time TROS player I say YES to the death spiral!
It is a wonderful mechanic that punishes players from continueing to fight when they should be running away!
This is IMHO, an issue of wanting different things out of your game. And an issue of player PRIDE (my PC
never flees from battle!)That in TROS will get your PC killed - fast.
Q1&2: Yes, shock is immediatly subtracted from your current die pool - with any extra subtracted from your new pool when pools refresh. Pain starts on the next round and is a constant diepool minus.
Q3: yes asuccessful counter give you those extra six dice to attack your opponent with immediatly. Throwing all your dice into an attack looks good on paper, but against those who know how to play your basicaly gambling with your PC's life. (you may have a run of luck, but in the end the house always wins.)
see also the above posts on buying initiative.
QuoteAs long as the game pits success against success, it's mathematically fairly silly to not attack all out once you have enough of a CP to punish someone who doesn't block all out.
Once you wound your opponent of course it's silly not to finish him off??? and if they aren't wounded and don't block/evade/counter/buy initiative, then they deserve what they get!
I'm actually now quite confused - how is this "death spiral" a bad thing???
Quote from: JaegerQuoteOnce people started to take damage, it became progressively harder to continue without fatality. Even a light wound turned a minor gunfight into a difficult encounter due to the loss of skill and increased target numbers.
You speak as if this is a bad thing????
As a long time TROS player I say YES to the death spiral!
It is a wonderful mechanic that punishes players from continueing to fight when they should be running away!
This is IMHO, an issue of wanting different things out of your game. And an issue of player PRIDE (my PC never flees from battle!)That in TROS will get your PC killed - fast.
Knowing that I can die in one attack is sufficient reason to run away in a hit point system, a shadowrun-esque system, a WoD system, a WP/VP system, or a 'realistic' damage resolution system. I don't need the system to reduce my ability to run away, or defend myself, or even live, in order to tell me that I'm outmatched!
Quote from: Jaeger
Q1&2: Yes, shock is immediatly subtracted from your current die pool - with any extra subtracted from your new pool when pools refresh. Pain starts on the next round and is a constant diepool minus.
This is why attacking all out works. I won't deny that there are situations when it's a bad idea. That is one of the things that make statistical comparisons of games difficult: there are often a lot of different circumstances. Anyway, with the way the system is built, all I need is average luck vs. average luck and a 2 die advantage in order to make an all-out-attack successful. Even one level of damage is enough to make sure that 'a few' held back dice are likely gone. If the defender holds back more dice, they take more damage, and lose more of the dice. The only offsetting factor that I am seeing so far is that the defender wins ties...which just means I need the two CP advantage in order to feel safe in the attack.
Quote from: Jaeger
Q3: yes asuccessful counter give you those extra six dice to attack your opponent with immediatly. Throwing all your dice into an attack looks good on paper, but against those who know how to play your basicaly gambling with your PC's life. (you may have a run of luck, but in the end the house always wins.)
Of course the house always wins. There is only one of you, and a limitless number of mooks out there who want nothing more than to kill you, right? Cumulative wound effects are much harder on PC's than NPC's for that very reason.
Regarding the question. Thanks. I did not get a good feel from the QS rules whether the automatic successes did, indeed, count as dice in terms of being able to do something in an exchange.
Quote from: Jaeger
see also the above posts on buying initiative.
This appears to be a risky move that takes quite a bit of your CP to even attempt.
Quote from: Jaeger
Once you wound your opponent of course it's silly not to finish him off??? and if they aren't wounded and don't block/evade/counter/buy initiative, then they deserve what they get!
You misunderstand my point. If you ever have, as a character, a higher CP than your opponent, by at least two dice, you will probably win any exchange if you attack full out. If your opponent does anything but defend, the margin of dice becomes even larger, and the chance of doing anything successfully becomes that much lower.
Quote from: Jaeger
I'm actually now quite confused - how is this "death spiral" a bad thing???
Because it is tremendously un-fun and un-heroic in any implementation I've ever seen. If game circumstances force me into a fight, I don't want to be crippled for the rest of the night if luck is not on my side during an exchange.
Hello Zilvar,
If you attack me with a full out attack and a 2 die advantage, I basically have two options.
First option is to buy initiative. In your example above with a 12 die CP, I could spend 6 dice on buying initiative. The odds will be in my favor since some of those dice will probably be buying up your TN for the opposed roll - I'll probably end up with an 6 TN versus your 8 TN. So now I, the supposed defender, more likely than not have initiative and half a tank full of gas - a free and clear 6 die shot on you.
This means an average of 3 successes with the bastard sword in your example. Assuming strength and toughness cancel each other out, if you have any unarmored spots that's a level 5 wound - game over. If you have light armor I still get a decent wound in and hurt your combat pool enough that your attack will be severely weakened (you might have even dropped your weapon or been knocked out/knocked down too). If on the other hand you have full heavy armor coverage to cancel this out in addition to a die pool advantage, then it's clear that I'm very much outmatched and now I go to the second option...
The second option is to full evade and bail out in the face of a vastly superior opponent. I have a TN 4 for full evade versus your TN 6 for a thrust with a bastard sword. Even with a 2 die advantage you'll have to get pretty lucky to hit me. If I am clearly outclassed - why stick around for the slaughter? More importantly, I could tell I was outclassed before getting injured, and have a chance to make a break - so the death spiral hasn't kicked in yet.
Quote from: zilvar
This is why attacking all out works. I won't deny that there are situations when it's a bad idea. That is one of the things that make statistical comparisons of games difficult: there are often a lot of different circumstances. Anyway, with the way the system is built, all I need is average luck vs. average luck and a 2 die advantage in order to make an all-out-attack successful. Even one level of damage is enough to make sure that 'a few' held back dice are likely gone. If the defender holds back more dice, they take more damage, and lose more of the dice. The only offsetting factor that I am seeing so far is that the defender wins ties...which just means I need the two CP advantage in order to feel safe in the attack.
Yeah, but your assumption of a 2 die advantage is a huge flaw in your theory. You don't know how many dice an NPC has when the fight starts. He might have 2 dice fewer than you. He might have 2 dice more. He might have 5 dice more! What are you going to do? Throwing it all down is clearly reckless and in the long run will get you killed. If you are cautious and probe to find out how good he is, you can fall back on full evade TN 4 if you find out he's better than you. Full out attack only works if you assume that you will always be facing inferior opponents - why shouldn't a predictable formula produce predictable results in such a predictable environment?
It seems that you are only asserting that a full out attack is the best option in a campaign where the Seneschal has guaranteed that you will never face anyone who has a combat larger than yours minus two. That's a pretty odd setup and it sounds pretty boring to me. I don't think that's a problem with the game mechanics.
Quote from: zilvar
Quote from: Jaeger
see also the above posts on buying initiative.
This appears to be a risky move that takes quite a bit of your CP to even attempt.
See my example above. Buying initiative can decisively turn the odds to your favor against someone who overcommits in their attack against you.
Quote from: zilvar
Quote from: Jaeger
Once you wound your opponent of course it's silly not to finish him off??? and if they aren't wounded and don't block/evade/counter/buy initiative, then they deserve what they get!
You misunderstand my point. If you ever have, as a character, a higher CP than your opponent, by at least two dice, you will probably win any exchange if you attack full out. If your opponent does anything but defend, the margin of dice becomes even larger, and the chance of doing anything successfully becomes that much lower.
Again you are assuming that you will always have a two+ dice advantage. To me that's a character with hubris - a fatal flaw. He thinks he's the biggest kid on the block and gets overconfident until someone bigger smacks him down. ;) Suddenly he tries this on a major enemy, who has a few more dice and pulls off a counter. Now the enemy gets an uncontested attack with 18 dice...
Quote from: zilvar
Quote from: Jaeger
I'm actually now quite confused - how is this "death spiral" a bad thing???
Because it is tremendously un-fun and un-heroic in any implementation I've ever seen. If game circumstances force me into a fight, I don't want to be crippled for the rest of the night if luck is not on my side during an exchange.
That's what Spiritual Attributes are for. They are the heroic part of the game, not the wound system.
Quote from: kenjibHello Zilvar
Good morning
Quote from: kenjib
If you attack me with a full out attack and a 2 die advantage, I basically have two options.
First option is to buy initiative. In your example above with a 12 die CP, I could spend 6 dice on buying initiative. The odds will be in my favor since some of those dice will probably be buying up your TN for the opposed roll - I'll probably end up with an 6 TN versus your 8 TN. So now I, the supposed defender, more likely than not have initiative and half a tank full of gas - a free and clear 6 die shot on you.
Quote from: QuickStart Rules
Instead of simply waiting for your attack turn in
order of Coordination, or defending as normal,
tell the Seneschal you want to buy the initiative by
spending CP dice equal to your opponent’s Wits.
You may then roll a Contest of Presence against
your opponent’s Wits, each against a TN equal to
the other’s Coordination; the one who gains more
successes will strike first.
Once the actions of Initiative have been established,
the first Exchange takes place: the attacker
allocates a portion of his Combat Pool to an
attack and rolls; the defender does likewise with
his Combat Pool to defend.
This text does not make it clear that you can buy initiative as a response to a combat move. In fact, it seems to contradict that notion. Initiative is determined (by whatever fashion), and then the attacker/defender throw dice. I'll assume, since everyone seems to believe it to be true, that the full rules explicitly indicate that buying initiative is an allowed combat move.
Next question. The TN's for the buyout. What is the basis for your assumption that the TN's will be so different?
Quote from: kenjib
The second option is to full evade and bail out in the face of a vastly superior opponent. I have a TN 4 for full evade versus your TN 6 for a thrust with a bastard sword. Even with a 2 die advantage you'll have to get pretty lucky to hit me. If I am clearly outclassed - why stick around for the slaughter? More importantly, I could tell I was outclassed before getting injured, and have a chance to make a break - so the death spiral hasn't kicked in yet.
Yes, getting out of there will work. I should have mentioned this, but I was mentally stuck on the example of combat from the quickstart rules where one fighter has a 4-die advantage over the other (who is armored). In the example, evading still wouldn't have garnered enough successes to keep a wound from happening. Mea culpa.
Quote from: kenjib
Yeah, but your assumption of a 2 die advantage is a huge flaw in your theory. You don't know how many dice an NPC has when the fight starts.
Not really. If I don't know, throught dint of my marvelous metagaming powers, then I spend a few rounds trying to figure it out. Please. I'm not stupid, just disillusioned with dice pool systems and cumulative damage effects. :)
Quote from: kenjib
Quote from: zilvar
You misunderstand my point. If you ever have, as a character, a higher CP than your opponent, by at least two dice, you will probably win any exchange if you attack full out. If your opponent does anything but defend, the margin of dice becomes even larger, and the chance of doing anything successfully becomes that much lower.
Again you are assuming that you will always have a two+ dice advantage. To me that's a character with hubris - a fatal flaw. He thinks he's the biggest kid on the block and gets overconfident until someone bigger smacks him down. ;) Suddenly he tries this on a major enemy, who has a few more dice and pulls off a counter. Now the enemy gets an uncontested attack with 18 dice...
No, I'm not. I'm suggesting that at any time you have even a minor advantage in CP, the game system appears to support attacking your opponent all-out in order to score minor damage. The cumulative effect of minor strikes more than outweighs any concern that an opponent will hold back dice.
Quote from: kenjib
That's what Spiritual Attributes are for. They are the heroic part of the game, not the wound system.
So far as I have seen, SA's only provide extra dice to the pool. This makes you a stronger fighter. It does nothing to offset the game- and fun-related problems that arise from a death spiral.
One should also note that 2 dice is only a fairly modest advantage. It isn't all that unlikely for 10 dice to beat 12 dice. The expected value on 10 dice is 6, on 12 dice its 6 (assumeing the easy TN of 6).
You're going to bet your life on that thin margin on a regular basis?
Quote from: ValamirOne should also note that 2 dice is only a fairly modest advantage. It isn't all that unlikely for 10 dice to beat 12 dice. The expected value on 10 dice is 6, on 12 dice its 6 (assumeing the easy TN of 6).
You're going to bet your life on that thin margin on a regular basis?
Sure, why not. :) I am currently playing in a D&D campaign (my first since 3.x was released) and I have resigned myself to the fact that as the Official Sneaky Bastard, I can be killed by a single lucky hit from a single orc until sometime around level 4.
More seriously, the answer is still yes. If the dice are being unfriendly to me, they're being unfriendly, and it won't matter much if I'm attacking all out or defending with all my heart. Statistically, I have the best chance of surviving (under those conditions) if I just go balls-to-the-wall.
Quote from: ValamirOne should also note that 2 dice is only a fairly modest advantage. It isn't all that unlikely for 10 dice to beat 12 dice. The expected value on 10 dice is 6, on 12 dice its 6 (assumeing the easy TN of 6).
Sorry Ralph, I just have to chime in on this one :-). The most likely number of successes rolled with 10 dice and a TN of 6 is 5, with a 22.6% chance. The most like number of successes rolling 12 dice with the same TN is 6 with the same percent chance. Rolling 5 successes with 12 dice is tied for the second most likely outcome at 19.3%, but the point you make is well taken.
I'm sorry I'm such a statistics nerd.
What you're not getting, Zil, is that getting hit in combat means one of two things in TROS.
1. The combat is over. Just like in real life, getting injured means that you've lost the battle if the injury overcomes your ability to fight. Which is the intent of injuries.
2. The injury is light. This means that you have to reassess your choice to fight. Do you continue, knowing that you're now much more likely to lose, or do you give up.
Now, to you, this sounds unheroic. The heroic part is getting into the combat, and doing well in the first place. Not getting injured, but instead injuring. You seem to believe that injuries in the game are the result of random chance to a large extent. But given the mechanics of the system, and good play, it's not all that random, actually. That is, in play, you often come in with a large advantage in terms of SAs, and this means that as long as you play relatively smart, you'll avoid getting injured, and you'll come out on top.
Meaning that as long as you can get that advantage, you can be as madly heroic as you like. It's the equivalent of gaining 20 hit points for the battle or something.
Play of TROS is all about making heroic choices. When looking at a particular conflict, the player uses his metagame ability (as you put it) to guage the opponent within a few dice of his total, and then he looks at what he's got available. What's his total CP with SAs that are applicable in this case? He looks at the difference.
+10 CP - he can take this guy without a sweat, no need to worry about the choice.
+6 CP - this is someone he can take with almost certainty, but the player will have to think a little in order not to get outwitted.
+2 CP - this is a combat that the PC should win, but it's by no means certain. The player should really consider whether his PC is really interested in this battle.
0 CP - even odds. Would you step into a fight in which you had even odds? I mean, in D&D if you're up against a mirror image of your character, he's got a 50% chance of losing, right? So a player chosing to do this is accepting that his character might get mangled, right?
-2 CP - the player should really rethink this fight. Unless he plays really well, or gets really lucky, he'll lose. Why is he fighting this battle? If the PC has SAs firing, then this means that the GM is cruel, because he pitted the PC against a vastly superior foe. The player's choice is to run or likely die.
-6 CP the PC should run. There can't be any good reason for him to be involved in this fight. Just like in D&D when the GM puts first level characters up against a giant.
See what I'm getting at? The choices are somewhat the same. In D&D, you only attack when you have the advantage. In TROS, you only attack when you have the advantage. The neat thing in TROS, however, is that your opponent might be equal in strength and skill to you - your advantage may be that you care more about the situation than he does. In fact, many here say that if SAs aren't firing, then the GM hasn't done his job right. There should never be a case where the PC ends up in a fight that he doesn't care about to some extent. What's heroic about beating up (or getting beaten up by) a randomly wandering bunch of monsters? What's heroic is saving you lady love from certain death at the hands of your hated enemy.
Try the game out. In actual play, if the GM follows he SA advice that we give here, PCs will only die when the player is senseless to involve his character in fights that he doesn't care about. Otherwise, if he pursues his character goals, he'll be able to be quite heroic.
On the subject of all out first attacks, your math fails to account for the fact that certain defensive maneuvers have a mechanical advantage to them that makes them more potent than attacks in terms of overall dice produced (and hence later damage). So the simple sounding analysis you put out doesn't hold. Counter is the most obvious example, as has been stated here repeatedly. Through a combination of real life experience with western martial arts, and vigorous playtesting, Jake managed to avoid there being any simple tactics of any sort that are automatically "best". In fact, it can be argued that simple tactics of these sorts, being predictable, are actually amongst the worst tactics.
Mike
Heh...Tony, you caught me in a sloppy typo.
Of course its 5... 10 and 12 dice couldn't both be six.
whoops...
Quote from: zilvarThis text does not make it clear that you can buy initiative as a response to a combat move. In fact, it seems to contradict that notion. Initiative is determined (by whatever fashion), and then the attacker/defender throw dice. I'll assume, since everyone seems to believe it to be true, that the full rules explicitly indicate that buying initiative is an allowed combat move.
I dunno about the quick start rules, but in the full rules the one who has the initiative (threw red vs white, won it during the previous exchange, etc.) declares his maneuver. The other then declares his maneuver; this has not be defensive maneuver, but may be an attack or other offensive thing. If the 'defender' chose an offensive maneuver, he'll go last in that exchange -- the original aggressor has the initiative. But it is perfectly valid to 'buy initiative' if you don't have it, so usually the 'defender' will do this.
Quote from: zilvarNext question. The TN's for the buyout. What is the basis for your assumption that the TN's will be so different?
The mechanics really favor the buyer in the full rules, assuming he has extra dice to spend. For each extra die spent in addition to the activation cost (opponent's Per stat), the buyee's TN rises by one, up to some maximum.
So my favourite tactic against an all-out attack would be 1) ditch defence and attack an unarmoured part, and 2) buy initiative. I can use all my CP to do this, maybe divide 50/50 between 1 and 2. The enemy's toast.
Now you may be thinking that it really sucks to be the attacker, since at all times the defender can just buy the initiative and skewer you with an unopposed attack (once you've chosen your maneuver, you're committed to it). It isn't explicitly stated in the rules, but if the opponent buys your initiative, you can just buy it back if you have the dice. It becomes more interesting, and huge attacks just don't happen all the time.
Quote from: zilvar
Quote from: QuickStart Rules
Instead of simply waiting for your attack turn in
order of Coordination, or defending as normal,
tell the Seneschal you want to buy the initiative by
spending CP dice equal to your opponent's Wits.
You may then roll a Contest of Presence against
your opponent's Wits, each against a TN equal to
the other's Coordination; the one who gains more
successes will strike first.
Once the actions of Initiative have been established,
the first Exchange takes place: the attacker
allocates a portion of his Combat Pool to an
attack and rolls; the defender does likewise with
his Combat Pool to defend.
This text does not make it clear that you can buy initiative as a response to a combat move. In fact, it seems to contradict that notion. Initiative is determined (by whatever fashion), and then the attacker/defender throw dice. I'll assume, since everyone seems to believe it to be true, that the full rules explicitly indicate that buying initiative is an allowed combat move.
Yeah, the full TROS rules for buying initiative say that there are two situations for buying iniative. The first is when you both throw red dice and you didn't win initiative. You can buy it to go first. The second is when you are defending and you decide to say to heck with defense and want to pre-emptively strike instead - which is the exact scenario I've recommended against a full pool attack.
Quote from: zilvar
Next question. The TN's for the buyout. What is the basis for your assumption that the TN's will be so different?
In the full rules the person buying initiative can spend extra dice beyond the initial cost to drive up his opponent's TN. I assumed a 4 dice cost and each player with a 6 reflex score (which sets the TN). So by spending 6 dice the person buying initiative can bump up his opponent's TN from 6 to 8. His opponent does not have the same option. These numbers can vary but this is fairly representative for starting power level warrior type characters.
Quote from: zilvar
Quote from: kenjib
Yeah, but your assumption of a 2 die advantage is a huge flaw in your theory. You don't know how many dice an NPC has when the fight starts.
Not really. If I don't know, throught dint of my marvelous metagaming powers, then I spend a few rounds trying to figure it out. Please. I'm not stupid, just disillusioned with dice pool systems and cumulative damage effects. :)
I thought you were talking about going for a full out attack on the very first exchange. If you're talking about doing this after you've spent several rounds sizing up your opponent, then I don't see how that's a bad thing in the game. It's still a great risk though. In my previous example of buying initiative it doesn't really matter if you have 18 or 20 or 25 dice. Since you left yourself wide open for attack I will still do the same damage when I pre-empt you. Part of the benefit of a large dice pool advantage is the ability to successfully defend against your opponent and still have extra dice for an advantageous offensive response. By burning everything on one strike you are giving that huge advantage up completely and giving your opponent the opportunity to completely ignore your dice pool advantage with a strong uncontested strike.
Also, one more thing to be wary of is a nice trick that Jake pointed out and I believe several people use. You are free to not use a couple of dice from the pool, keep them a secret, and pull them out as a surprise - "There's something I must tell you...I'm not left handed either!"
TROS combat can be a cool mind game...
Quote from: zilvar
Quote from: kenjib
That's what Spiritual Attributes are for. They are the heroic part of the game, not the wound system.
So far as I have seen, SA's only provide extra dice to the pool. This makes you a stronger fighter. It does nothing to offset the game- and fun-related problems that arise from a death spiral.
Well, I think I misunderstood your argument as I thought you were talking about doing a full pool attack on the first exchange specifically. So Mike Holmes probably has a better response in this regard than I.
Yeah, combat is fast and decisive in TROS moreso than some other game systems. I can see how that would be a problem if you don't like that. However, as I pointed out you have the option of full evading to escape if things look bad, just like you have the option of trying to flee when you see your hit points going down too quickly in D&D. Either way you've sized up your opponent and decided to flee. I think the design goal of this is to make you choose your fights more carefully, which supports the theme of the game - "what is worth dying for?" What spiritual attributes do is give you a large advantage against your opponents when you are fighting for things that truly matter to you. Heroism doesn't have to just mean super-heroic power. It can also mean making tough choices and suddenly shining brightly when you are fighting for what is important.
Since the topic that I originally posted to seems to have been taken up here, I thought I'd repost my idea here for fixing the affect of how condensing the
Hit Zones causes problems with the use of armour.
Quote from: Dúrgil...You could create an armour system like I suggest here (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=9976&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=). The idea is basically a dice roll that determines how much damage the armour protects, which I got from The Burning Wheel Fantasy Roleplaying System (http://www.burningwheel.org/). It doesn't make much since with regards to any Quickstart Rules, but I like this idea of eliminating all of those tables.
Quote from: Mike HolmesWhat you're not getting, Zil, is that getting hit in combat means one of two things in TROS.
Oh..no. I get it. ;) I just find the mechanic of getting worse as you take damage to be a generally un-fun way to play a game. I've played this type of mechanic before, and I find it uninteresting in general.
Quote from: Mike Holmes
Now, to you, this sounds unheroic. The heroic part is getting into the combat, and doing well in the first place. Not getting injured, but instead injuring. You seem to believe that injuries in the game are the result of random chance to a large extent. But given the mechanics of the system, and good play, it's not all that random, actually. That is, in play, you often come in with a large advantage in terms of SAs, and this means that as long as you play relatively smart, you'll avoid getting injured, and you'll come out on top.
I also understand the concept of smart play and only fighting the fights that mean something. Somewhat foolishly, perhaps, I
do have the expectation that the GM won't go out of his way to kill me without warning or merit. However, I take issue with your comment that the element of randomness is minimized because of the SA's. Throwing a lot of dice, you'll tend toward a given, easily calculated, number of successes, but this is just as affected by chance as anything else.
Quote from: Mike Holmes
Try the game out. In actual play, if the GM follows he SA advice that we give here, PCs will only die when the player is senseless to involve his character in fights that he doesn't care about. Otherwise, if he pursues his character goals, he'll be able to be quite heroic.
It is unlikely that I will have the opportunity to try the game in actual practice. You'd think that a town with 5 military bases would have an active gaming community, but I'll be damned if I can find it. :/
Quote from: Mike Holmes
On the subject of all out first attacks, your math fails to account for the fact that certain defensive maneuvers have a mechanical advantage to them that makes them more potent than attacks in terms of overall dice produced (and hence later damage). So the simple sounding analysis you put out doesn't hold. Counter is the most obvious example, as has been stated here repeatedly. Through a combination of real life experience with western martial arts, and vigorous playtesting, Jake managed to avoid there being any simple tactics of any sort that are automatically "best". In fact, it can be argued that simple tactics of these sorts, being predictable, are actually amongst the worst tactics.
As I've said, counter seems to be a poor choice in this case. You'll never match the number of successes. Buying initiative seems likely, since it appears to allow the defender to completely negate the attack and cause those dice to be wasted. Beyond that, I haven't seen a mathematically reasonable counter, and that was part of the reason I posted.
Thanks
Kenjib, Overdrive
Thanks for the answer on the initiative buyout TN. That clears up the situation nicely.
Quote from: zilvarQuote from: Mike HolmesWhat you're not getting, Zil, is that getting hit in combat means one of two things in TROS.
Oh..no. I get it. ;) I just find the mechanic of getting worse as you take damage to be a generally un-fun way to play a game. I've played this type of mechanic before, and I find it uninteresting in general.
Mike: wounding ends combat.
Zil: but I don't like to play after my combat ability has been degraded.
That's my point, you won't have to most of the time.
See, in a game like Shadow Run, the "fun" part of the tactics theoretically is managing your dice pools as they reduce due to wounding. Which isn't really fun, because you have less and less ability to do things as your pool goes down.
In TROS, the fun part is managing your dice pool so that you don't get hit, and still hit your opponent. Because once that happens, the combat changes. It's either over, or you're making a dramatic statement about your character continuing against all odds. The fun of TROS comes before anyone is wounded. After they're wounded, it's over, essentially.
Think of it this way, what if you were playing a combat to first blood (or palpable hit)? Then you wouldn't worry at all about the death spiral, because it wouldn't exist, right? This wouldn't be fun in SR, because it's only likely to last one roll or so, and not have much in the way of tactics to it. Just nothing to it. In TROS, this could be extrememly interesting to play out, because the tactics are such that they make it complex, even before the "wounding" game begins.
So, all TROS is much like a duel to first blood in this way. The damage is so telling on most wounds that it's over at that point, effectively. In practice you don't continue most of the time (you run if you can, or surrender, because you've lost the fight).
So, my point continues to be that these are not the same phenomenon. I retract my comment about there being a death spiral, because it's not so much a death spiral as a death sentence. That is, if you continue to fight, you're going to lose in most of these cases. It's the game telling you that it's time to reconsider your options. As opposed to actual death spirals which will allow you to continue to fight safely but with no chance to win. Which I agree is pointless. Two very different things.
QuoteI also understand the concept of smart play and only fighting the fights that mean something. Somewhat foolishly, perhaps, I do have the expectation that the GM won't go out of his way to kill me without warning or merit.
That's not foolish, it's common sense. If you don't trust your GM, then what are you doing participating in a social activity with him? Get another GM.
QuoteHowever, I take issue with your comment that the element of randomness is minimized because of the SA's. Throwing a lot of dice, you'll tend toward a given, easily calculated, number of successes, but this is just as affected by chance as anything else.
Don't get me wrong, there are chances that things will go against you. In fact, you may end up wounded. But you'll rarely end up dead. Meaning, again, that the game has just informed you to run if you can, or surrender, because you've gotten unlucky and lost.
In the mode of play that TROS works towards, this isn't a bad thing. Heroes don't always win. And losing a battle doesn't neccessarily mean death. Especially if you surrender. Unless you're playing in a psychotically viscious world, people just don't kill people who've given up, even if murder was their intent in the first place. Killing isn't easy.
Moreover, losing your character isn't supposed to be an entirely bad thing in TROS. If you die fighting for something that you care about, that's pretty heroic. TROS supports that. Further, it rewards you on death with a bonus for your next character. So if you do manage to get that unlucky, then the game makes that a cool result, too. If death wasn't a cool part of TROS, it wouldn't be in there. Unlike many other designs in which character death is pretty dysfunctional.
QuoteIt is unlikely that I will have the opportunity to try the game in actual practice. You'd think that a town with 5 military bases would have an active gaming community, but I'll be damned if I can find it. :/
One of the principles that we like to espouse around here is that you should make your own groups. Gaming is social, and something that you should do with your friends, not with people who just happen to have the same hobby as you. When you form a team for softball, you don't just recruit from the general populace, do you? No, you get the people you know to share the fun.
Make a new TROS group, and try it out. Another thing you'll find is that if they don't have the "gamer" attitude that they'll be much more open to how a game like TROS works. It's another principle here that gamers get mired in "tradition" and when they do, can't understand innovations in design.
Lastly a group made of your own friends is going to be based on trust. So you'll never have that GM who's trying to shove his story down your neck no matter what his uppity players do. Or is just out to kill the players on some sort of power trip. (TROS doesn't protect you against this, nor can it or any other game - the problem is at a level more fundamental than the rules can fix).
QuoteAs I've said, counter seems to be a poor choice in this case. You'll never match the number of successes. Buying initiative seems likely, since it appears to allow the defender to completely negate the attack and cause those dice to be wasted. Beyond that, I haven't seen a mathematically reasonable counter, and that was part of the reason I posted.
We get in these mathematical circles. You're the one that points out that maybe a person with 10 dice might defeat one with 12. In fact, this is going to happen at some point. So if you keep doing this, eventually somebody is going to get to do a free five dice attack on you, which will do you in. It's not that the all out attack doesn't have some merit against the counter. It's just that there are tactics less likely to kill you in the long run. Remember that you should win if you have more dice, so even bad tactics are still somewhat likely to work. That doesn't make them the best tactics, however.
Mike
Mike, it occurs to me that Zilvar is talking from a D&D-heavy (or pseudo-D&D) viewpoint/background...at least, that what a lot of his arguments sound based on to me.
That is, it seems to me like a clash of assumptions, the events of actual play against what the expectations of actual play are -- D&D functions with a wholly different paradigm than TROS.
"I don't like my effectiveness dropping when wounded," is an argument when referencing TROS that makes me scratch my head and ask, "Well, why WOULD you get wounded?"
Of course, in TROS, the point is NOT to get wounded -- this isn't D&D where every combat exchange is guaranteed to whittle down your HP lower and lower until you need to rest and/or heal or face death. In TROS, the expectation gamers bring with them is that combat must result in blows being traded and thus wounds being taken.
But that doesn't happen in TROS, wounds don't "happen" as a matter of battle -- the "resource" is set up NOT to go down, no matter how many fights you get into. And if it ever does, then you're in trouble.
It isn't a case of "At %HP you have a -X to hit" and %HP will be reached via combat -- I agree, that sort of effectiveness drop when the resource is guaranteed to drop isn't much fun. But it isn't TROS, either.
But that's the expectation of play with a lot of gamers, particularly long-time D&D players (but by no means restricted to them), that games tend to play a particular "way" beyond the rules. In this case, the expectation is that lots of action and lots of fights result in wounds (or rather, loss of a resource), because that's what happens in combat, you get "little wounds."
I think gamers have a hard time grasping the difference in play here, because of various expectations being trained in through play, and in comparing new systems against those unspoken (and, honestly, reasonable) expectations that have been developed, there's the reaction that "it won't work!" -- and of course it won't, if that's the way the game actually functioned.
Quote from: greyormMike, it occurs to me that Zilvar is talking from a D&D-heavy (or pseudo-D&D) viewpoint/background...at least, that what a lot of his arguments sound based on to me.
(...massive snip...)
Shadowrun, actually. It has the closest parallel in dice pool and 'death sentence' mechanics to what I have seen. Shadowrun combat, in games I was in, ran so fast that either you lived through the first turn, or you were dead when the combat was over. There was no middle ground, because there was only one effective tactic built into the game.
I argue that it is a function of the dice pool mechanic. TROS, based on some of these conversations, at least seems to make the attempt to do something about it.
Quote from: Mike Holmes
Mike: wounding ends combat.
Zil: but I don't like to play after my combat ability has been degraded.
Ouch. That's a fairly uncharitable summation of the discussion to-date.
Quote from: Mike Holmes
See, in a game like Shadow Run, the "fun" part of the tactics theoretically is managing your dice pools as they reduce due to wounding. Which isn't really fun, because you have less and less ability to do things as your pool goes down.
In practice, effective characters in Shadowrun are those who can kill one or more opponents before the other side can respond in initiative order. In my experience. Again, in my experience, once a runner took any damage in a fight with an equivalent foe, they were usually dead within a few initiative tics. The cumulative effect of damage was effectively impossible to overcome in a fight between equivalent foes.
I probably have more to say in response to this post, but Mother Nature seems to be barrelling down on me with the righteous fury of a thunderstorm ignored, and I am turning this baby off before it gets toasted. :)
Quote from: zilvarKenjib, Overdrive
Thanks for the answer on the initiative buyout TN. That clears up the situation nicely.
No problem Zilvar. Sorry to hear about the lack of gaming community for you. Have you tried play-by-post/email/chat? Of course it's not the same as meeting up face to face with a bunch of buddies but it does have other merits...
Quote from: kenjibQuote from: zilvarKenjib, Overdrive
Thanks for the answer on the initiative buyout TN. That clears up the situation nicely.
No problem Zilvar. Sorry to hear about the lack of gaming community for you. Have you tried play-by-post/email/chat? Of course it's not the same as meeting up face to face with a bunch of buddies but it does have other merits...
I do free-form roleplay online regularly, and a college friend who is now several states removed has started a D&D campaign online, my first since 2nd edition was released. We thought to use the WebRPG tool, but it is very .. I don't know, massive, perhaps. The act of setting up a small encounter is very time intensive, and we often don't have more than a few hours per week in which to play.
This is an interesting conversation. I've been quite interested in the game for some time, trying to talk myself into buying it mostly. I will say that some of the people here are... a little elitist. But hey, gamers everywhere seem the same regardless of system, so no surprise there.
I bought into D20 mostly because well, I'd rather have players available than not, and I would rather game than not game, and I view the mechanics as secondary to story. But that's just me. Part of what intriques me so about TRoS is that mechanics are *not* irrelevant to story! The mechanics really are integral to shaping the story.
Anyway, this "death spiral" thing is something that my gaming friends mention every time I bring TRoS up, so this is a very useful thread. Thanks! Threads like this one might help me convince some people to try it out if I shell out the money for it :)
Keep in mind that most people who cry out "death spiral" (what a goofy term, if I have to make my own judgement) have never played the game, or haven't played it the way it's meant to be played...
In the end, however, some people may simply not like TRoS. Yes, it's possible. ::Waits for the gasps of shock to die down:: It's got a very steep learning curve. It's got a deadly, realistic combat system which really is superior to any other if the goal is realistic modeling of actual swordplay.
Mini-rant:
Am I elitist? Probably. But I don't think that anyone should play TRoS if it doesn't suit them. I do, however, believe that you should play TRoS before you give any sort of value-judgement, and play it properly before you make any sort of decision. If you are inclined to do neither, then, with all courtesy, keep your mouth shut on the topic. It's your right to not play, and though I might prefer otherwise, it's your right to sound off whether or not you should.. But it's also my right to consider you an ignorant jackass if you do.
Note that the above rant is not aimed at anyone in particular, nor was it inspired by anyone in particular.. It's just the recent rash of threads here mentioning opinions based on ignorance being spread across the internet like so much sewage.
Welcome to the Forge, Emiricol!
Quote from: Emiricol. . Threads like this one might help me convince some people to try it out if I shell out the money for it :)
That was how I got my group to try it -- I bought three indie titles and spread them out on the table during a break. Though I had no idea which one they'd take to. Playing TROS campaigns has been like getting a vitamin B shot. I encourage you to make the leap.
Wow, Wolfen. People really come here, to the TRoS forums, to bash the game? That would be asinine, yeah... Or do you just mean the opinions of people less knowledgeable than you? :)
Thanks for the welcome, bcook! I've gone through the quickstart rules and rummaged everything else I could get my hands on. The more I see, the more I want to buy it. I guess if I can't get my tabletop group to try it there's always OpenRPG.
Sorry for going off topic - just enthused about picking up the game as soon as I have the money.
No, they generally don't come here.. 'cause, yanno, the Forge is a bunch of elitists.
But there have been a couple recent threads, like this one, mentioning people bashing it elsewhere. There are several games I don't like. Most of them, I've not tried, or played "badly". Some of them I've played the way they're intended to be played, and I still don't like them. If I wanted to sit here and talk about why I didn't like a game that I understood how to play, I'd feel qualified. If I wanted to go to a site where this game is worshipped as the Game God Would Play if He Were a Gamer and tear it apart, detail by detail, I would feel qualified. On the other hand, if I sit here in my comfortable little TRoS niche, and bash a bunch of games that I've never played, or not played properly, talking about how TRoS is better than all of them and how much they suck because of this bit of nonsense I picked up from someone else who did a bad review, or because of this other tidbit I decided I hated on a brief read-through of the rules, not only would I be asinine, I'd be a coward. If I went to those other boards to nitpick their games with this premise, I'd be asinine, and a jackass for going to cause trouble.
Basically, any judgement made in ignorance is a losing proposition. I admit that some of the judgements I've made are totally ignorant, but I keep my mouth shut about them, and usually freely admit that my prejudice is entirely unreasoning. So long as I don't go running off at the mouth, either here or elsewhere, about some game I don't know enough about to be qualified, I'm good, and feel justified acting elitist toward those who decide not to keep their mouths shut.
And yes, I do tend to rant a bit. But I'm generally a nice guy.
I should have done the welcome to the Forge, and I feel an incredible boor for missing it. I hope you can forgive me. ::grins::
Quote from: IngeniousUhhh whoah. He's right. Whatdya know!
Also, Brian, your combat simulator is busted. It can't calculate reflex + proficiency. 6+6 does not equal 6...if ya know what I mean. I found a solution though by upping my proficiency to 12 lol.. which results of course in a CP of 12...
Uh, no. You're wrong.
Folk are right that the Combat Sim does incorrectly let you use committed dice to steal initiative (never noticed that before, oops) but it does calculate reflex+proficiency right (I just checked).
If it doesn't on your PC, try a re-install; sounds like something has gone screwey.
Brian.