Blackbirds: Resolution Mechanics

[Jeffrey Miller]

Here's the basic resolution mechanics for Blackbirds.  This is pulled directly out of my master document with some minor tweaking, so if something is unclear or uncontextual, ask me and I'll be happy to clarify.

The questions:
- Handling Time:  Is this too cumbersome?  is it too obstuse?  I'm shooting for simple but flavorful, through the comparison and the idea of stance (via Defense) being set for a number of passes

- Overwhelming Force:  Players abilities, as outlined in other threads, range from 2-6, which translates into that number of cards drawn (with the possibility for certain bonuses that are moderately rare).  Since most people begin with a score of 3 in their stats, and combat allows for playing of up to 4 cards, will the lack of options unfairly penalize non-experts in a given area?

- Flavor:  Is there enough flavor in this to pull off a rollicking and rowdy game about Pirates, or should options be explored for other ways to inject energy and genre?

As always, general comments and feedback, even outside of these questions, is appreciated :)

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Quick Bouts[/u]
So how does one lop the head off the leader of a boarding party, pry a gem from the eye socket of the Mad God's statue, or warble a romantic sea chanty to a dew-eyed woman of the night?

For simple tests of ability or skill that are quickly resolved (e.g. spotting a secret door noticing the bloodstain on the tunic of the Monkey King, or kicking in a door)  draw a number of cards equal to your relevant ability, while The Admiral draws 3 cards.  Each then plays a single card of their choice.  This is called a Quick Bout. The winner is the person who plays the card with the highest value, or a card in the suit of the ability your testing (trump suit.) If both players play a card from the contested suit, then the higher of the two is declared the winner.  In the case where you are contesting two different abilities, then each player considers cards in the suit of the ability with which they are opposing their challenger as their trump suit.

Chazz is unfortunately caught in the confusion as a rival Pirate band attacks the jail where the Spanish authorities are holding him.  Trying desperately to escape notice, he pulls his Knit Cap down low over his forehead, and spending a Plunder Point, attempts to use the Knit Cap's special bonus of escaping notice.  The special bonus calls for a Quick Bout between the Knit Cap's owners Cursing and the target whose attention you're trying to avoid's Sailing.  Chazz draws 4 cards (his Cursing ability) and draws a 7D, KS, 8S, and 5H.  He could choose to play the KS however the 5H  is a card from the suit of the attribute Chazz is testing against.  Unless his opponent can play a 6H or better (Hearts being the trump suit for the attribute Chazz's opponent is opposing him with ? Sailing) Chazz will win this Quick Bout.

Whoever plays the lower card proceeds to narrate the result of the Quick Bout.  This is a fair amount of power to place in the player's hands, and carries a responsibility to make the story interesting, complex, and rich.  Its strongly recommended that narrating your own failures not be seen as a punishment, but as an opportunity to expand the story, to provide interesting complications and results, perhaps even setting oneself up for success at a later time.

Bouts[/u]
When attempting to detirming the winner of extended contests of ability and skill, the player and The Admiral each draw a number of cards equal to the relevant ability. Both then play a card of their choice as their Defense card.  This card represents your starting defensive score. Opponents next play up to three cards facedown.  These cards represent a series of Strikes - thrusts, parries, shots, dodges, and general scrambles as our heroes (and villains) each attempt to gain the upper hand. If you can not play 3 cards because you have less in your hand, that's ok; we can't all be superstars.

Starting with the left-most card, opponents turn their cards face up. - we recommend a count of "1.. 2.. 3.. flip!"  High card wins, and has scored a Touch (in the case of a tie, the suit of the ability trumps.)  Compare the value of the Touch against the loser's Defense, without revealing the Defense card or its value.  If the Touch beats the Defense, the Defense is revealed, and play continues, until all three face down Strike cards have been revealed.  As with Quick Bouts, trump cards, or cards from the suit from which you are determining the number of cards to draw (generally in the case of combat, this ability will always be Fighting) always win over non-trump cards (cards from the other three suits.)  If both players play trump cards, then the cards are simply compared against one another as normal.

The player who played the lowest Strike or Defense card (in this case, trump cards are NOT considered to automatically best cards from other suits) now has an opportunity to narrate the action of the clash.  Poor narration (as determined by The Admiral) nets the player -1 card on their next draw.  Serviceable narration, but nothing special, gains them 1 bonus card for their next draw, while superior narration garners a bonus of 2 extra cards.

Each opponent then subtracts the number of Touches scored against them from their Well-Being, (effective until they are restored).  Opponents decide whether or not to retain their Defense card, choosing either to stay pat or discard it and hope that a better card comes up in their next draw.  Players shuffle used cards into their decks and replenish their hand by again drawing a number of cards equal to their relevant ability, less the number of Touches scored against them in the previous Bout. Thus does combat continue until one opponent or the other surrenders or has their Well-Being reduced to zero.

[Torrent]

Again trying to keep comments to the proper thread..

Did I miss somewhere where the signifigance of the Defense card is explained?  It seems like it has no bearing on the game at all, other than to be shown when it is overrun by another card.  It almost seems like it should adjust Touches somehow, but its never mentioned.

Maybe this isnt the feeling you are going for, but many of the pirate movies I've seen, Heroes go wading through crowds of the 'normal' pirates to get to the other heroes/villians.  So you may need some sort of mook rules, or have the well-being of the average pirate be only a few.  

About well-being, I don't remember seeing that elsewhere, can you point me to that thread if you remember where?

I do like the card idea.  It doesn't seem like it would have any high handling time than dice.  The only problem I can see is the discussion of which suit is trump based on the action.  

The benefit of throwing out a low card is the ability to narrate the failure??  Is there anyway to allow a player who throws a trump of high enough value to be able to narrate the success.  From your other thread, players can spend plunderpoints/dubloons to add into the narration.  So you are charging players who suceed to add items to the narration, but also allowing losers to gain points by possibily accepting these facts.

Is there any room for activating Plunder in this system?  Can I in the middle of a fight activate my 'Rusty Cutlass' to hack the guy blocking my way to the deck? Or use my 'Wickedly Gleaming Hook' to change the Duel into a contest of fear somehow?

Just thoughts, but I really like what you have so far.

Torrent

[Jeffrey Miller]

Did I miss somewhere where the signifigance of the Defense card is explained?  It seems like it has no bearing on the game at all, other than to be shown when it is overrun by another card.  It almost seems like it should adjust Touches somehow, but its never mentioned.

That's an interesting point.  I wanted the defense to be hidden when players play their Strike cards to try to bring a sense of suspense, of a duel of arms or wits, into the resolution of conflict.  Choose a style of defense, stick with it for at least 3 Strikes, and then change your stance/defence/posture/tactics.

Adjusting Touches.. in a way it does, doesn't it, by modifying a potential hit (a higher card played in a Strike) into a Touch or a Miss?  I may not be following exactly where you might be heading with the thought.  I had some really kooky math, shifting Touch cards into Defense, etc, but all that seemed to accomplish was to make things more concrete in result, increasing handling time, and generally dragging it down.

Maybe this isnt the feeling you are going for, but many of the pirate movies I've seen, Heroes go wading through crowds of the 'normal' pirates to get to the other heroes/villians.  So you may need some sort of mook rules, or have the well-being of the average pirate be only a few.  

Good point.  I'm waiting on a playtest early this week to get a better feel for the exact numbers, but I'm starting with mooks having 3 cards in all stats and no special bonuses.

About well-being, I don't remember seeing that elsewhere, can you point me to that thread if you remember where?

Ah, I didn't include that bit in the earlier thread about Abilities.  Well-Being starts as equal to your Drinking score at the end of character creation, and isn't affected by adverse conditions.  I had thought of using Drinking as the measure of damage, fatige, and health, but tracking damage to health using a stat that can flip-flop in value seemed odd;  yes, there should be an aspect of having something (like "limes" or "grog") to restore health in a single scene, but having a situation where damage in one situation was a net health gain in another situation didn't make much sense.

I do like the card idea.  It doesn't seem like it would have any high handling time than dice.  The only problem I can see is the discussion of which suit is trump based on the action.  

The cards seemed like a better approach then dice, given the other sorts of metrics ou can divine from them ? trump suits, face cards, aces, etc all encode interesting information into any given draw.

Besides, most people really can't count cards, so the players who crunch odds get handicapped ;)  

Hopefully with good examples any confusion about what a trump suit is can be remedied.  The oddity comes when you're comparing different abilities;  I'm not sure there's a better way to resolve it, other than restricting Bouts to testing like-abilities only.

The benefit of throwing out a low card is the ability to narrate the failure??  Is there anyway to allow a player who throws a trump of high enough value to be able to narrate the success.

That's an interesting thought ? perhaps throwing a face card from the trump suit grants narrative rights?  Part of the reason for going with the low-card is that since you  can play up to 4 cards in combat (a defense card and 3 strikes) I wanted to give people drawing more than 4 cards more options than simply automatically playing the highest cards, plus it helps people who are forced to play truly awful draws an opportunity to continue to participate (not to mention that I just like "loser narrates" rules, for all the great participation the encourage)

From your other thread, players can spend plunderpoints/dubloons to add into the narration.  So you are charging players who suceed to add items to the narration, but also allowing losers to gain points by possibily accepting these facts.

Almost ? my language is a little unclear, but its not necessarily the loser who narrates, but the person who plays the lowest card over all;  its conceivable that someone could play a duece as their defense, then 3 Kings as their Strikes ? potentially the deuce is the lowest card in that round of the Bout.

..but yes, I think you've got it.  The lower card "loser" narrates, forcing the "winner" to buy narration rights.  

As for activating Plunder, most (all) of the special bonuses either grant you a narrative bonus (the parrot croaks out the information you desire) or you gain extra cards.  Before you draw cards, announce you are activating one of your pieces of Plunder, and draw the extra cards in addition to your usual draw.

I like the idea of  pulling out the gleaming hook in the middle of combat to change the nature of the contest.  That's actually a very cool special bonus for the hook? *scribbles notes*

-j-

[Brian Leybourne]

It's looking good so far, but I don't like the idea that players can keep their defense card from round to round - it's counter intuitive to the idea that a higher stat is better.

After all, if I'm drawing 6 cards per combat round, then I'm obviously an expert fighter, and should totally outclass the other guy who is drawing 2 (and thus only gets defense plus one strike each round).

However, if he just happens to draw an Ace (assuming aces are high) of his trump suit in round one, he'll never be touched by me regardless of how long the combat goes, despite the fact that I'm clearly superior to him according to the numbers. It doesn't even have to be an Ace, any highish card of the trump suit is likely to defeat almost all of the strike cards I can play.

By instead forcing a new defense card each turn, you return the benefit to the guy with more cards, as it should be.

Just my 2c.

Brian.

[Jeffrey Miller]

It's looking good so far, but I don't like the idea that players can keep their defense card from round to round - it's counter intuitive to the idea that a higher stat is better.

After all, if I'm drawing 6 cards per combat round, then I'm obviously an expert fighter, and should totally outclass the other guy who is drawing 2 (and thus only gets defense plus one strike each round).

That's a good point, and on reflection I agree with you.  For the sake of discussion, however, how does this strike you:  tweak so that ties go to the attacker?  Since Trumps always best, the only card that absolutely wins in combat is the Ace of Spades, and even then as a defense, its still beatable by another Ace of Spades.

turn one:
player A (with fightin' of 2) draws 2 cards- 2 in 52 chance of drawing Ace of Spades
player B (with fightin' of 6) draws 6 cards- 6 in 52 chance of drawing Ace of Spades

turn two:
player A draws 2 cards- 2 in 50 chance of drawing Ace of Spades
player B  draws 6 cards- 6 in 46 chance of drawing Ace of Spades

turn three:
player A draws 2 cards- 2 in 48 chance of drawing Ace of Spades
player B  draws 6 cards- 6 in 40 chance of drawing Ace of Spades

[...]

The odds rapidly start tilting towards the person who can cycle cards faster.

I should point out that this is the only sort of "death spiral" available in the game as written - the odds are weighted towards the good fighter over the long term, as s/he'll be drawing more cards each turn in order to buff up defense.

-j-

[Brian Leybourne]

I can see what you're saying, but I'm perhaps a little confused. Let me sum it up as *I* see it, and you can clarify for me.

Code Select Expand

I have a fighting of 3, you have a fighting of 6. Spade is the trump for fighting.

I draw 3 cards, choose one to be my defense card, and the other 2 as strikes. You draw 6 cards, assign one as defense, three as strikes, and discard the other 2.

Decks do not reshuffle during combat, unless it goes so long that you run out (on the 9th round at 6 cards a round you have not got enough cards left, for example).

One by one, we compare our strikes. Whoever has the higher one wins. That card is then compared to the losers defense card. If it's lower, the strike fails (and the defense is not even revealed, we take the defender's word on the matter). If it's higher, the attack succeeds, and the defense card is flipped so we know what it is from then on, encouraging the defender to choose a new one next round to make it a secret again but even if they don't they can still keep it. You only ever have one defense card at a time.

For attack OR defense, the highest trump card wins, then the highest non-trump card regardless of which (non-trump) suit the card is.

Because I only have 2 strikes, your third one automatically hits me as long as it beats my defense card.

So, we'll end up with one of us taking possibly up to three strikes, but both could get strikes against them. Finally, the person who played the lowest card overall narrates the conflict for that round, taking the strikes into account.

You then keep or do not keep your defense card, and draw for the next round.

Do I have that right?

Comments:

Even with the higher skilled person winning on a tie, you still have a situation where a lucky high trump draw by a low skilled person can seriously affect combat since they get to keep it. I see what you're saying about the higher skilled person having more chance to draw a high card, but even when they do, they're going to want to use it as their own defense, so they have to draw TWO very good cards before they can get through the other persons defense once, right?

There isn't as much strategy as I first thought in choosing attack or defense cards. You would always play your trumps (in order), then your highest non-trumps. I'm not making a value judgment, just an observation - if this is what you want than it works perfectly. If you want to introduce some other kind of strategy, maybe you could order the other three suits in a kind of rock-paper-scissors order so that a high club might still be beated by a middling heart, or soemthing like that. You end up with "rock-paper-scissors-bomb" where bomb (trump) beats everything. Just a thought.

I really like the system. It's very die-like (rolling a D13 kind of), but there's a coolness element to using cards instead of dice.

I may have missed it in the original message, but do jokers play a part? Jokers are often pretty fundamental in systems that use cards.

Brian.

[Jeffrey Miller]

Do I have that right?

Yes, I think you got it as I posted it.

If you want to introduce some other kind of strategy, maybe you could order the other three suits in a kind of rock-paper-scissors order so that a high club might still be beated by a middling heart, or soemthing like that. You end up with "rock-paper-scissors-bomb" where bomb (trump) beats everything. Just a thought.

..and not a fundamentally poor one, either.  Cards have some really interesting metrics you can draw out of them - suit, color, facecard, value.  It seems a shame to waste all those dimensions.  I like the Rock-Paper-Scissors-Bomb idea, but am concerned that getting players who may not deal with cards on a continual basis to remember the cycle of suits might be, well, dicey.

I played this evening (at the weekly Seattle Indie Night) with the rules as written, and the feedback from the group on combat/extended contests was remarkable consistent - ditch the defense card as a useless mechanic and ave strikes only compare against each other, or better yet make every strike compared against the defense. Players liked ideas reducing the load from 2 comparisons down to only a single comparison, and I have to agree.

Another thought that someone raised was attempting to work in a concept of risk, by making the amount of damage taken if you fail equal to the card
used to make the attack with.  IE, play a King to try to ensure a successful attack, but if your opponent outdoes you by playing an Ace, you take a King(13) of damage.  This is REALLY interesting in that it plays with the motif of numbers on a spectrum;  low cards are unlikely to hit, but serve to lessen the damage of an attack, while high cards are -very- risky, but often work.

My sole complaint with this possible approach is that abilities are on a 2-6 scale, and "Well Bein'" (your hit points, for lack of a better term) are on the same scale (derived, in fact, from one of the four stats, "Drinkin'")   Without creating a system of soaks and a step of addition and division, I'd have to use a far different scale to track damage.  I like elegant numbers that sit well with each other;  somehow the unbalance feel ungainly, but I'm questioning this bias. :)

I may have missed it in the original message, but do jokers play a part? Jokers are often pretty fundamental in systems that use cards.

Not at the moment.  Since I'm not doing anything with making hands, having cards that are wild doesn't add much, although I've thought of making a joker-pull a signal to shuffle the deck (a la Deadlands).

-j-

[Shreyas Sampat]

You could kinds of dig up some symbology to make the suit cycle easier to remember:
Diamonds are land, buildings, walls, borders.
Hearts are hearts, blood, passion, selfishness.
Clubs are cannonballs, pirating, the lure of the sea.

Spades are knives, the treasure shovel, the sail.

Pirating takes you away from your passions, but you must always return to land.  Your passions take you off to sea again.

The ship, the gold, the sword, are still forever the centre of life.

[Brian Leybourne]

Out of the two options your playtesters suggested, I favor ditching the defense card and keeping it as a straight comparison of flipped strike cards; this avoids the possibility of luckily drawing a single powerful defense card.

The idea of the card played determining the damage isn't a bad one, would need to be explored/tested of course. See below for an alternate idea that just came to me though.

I realise that you're not making hands, but I think you should find a place for Jokers anyway, if only because they're something you can only occasionally expect to draw from a deck and thus it's exciting (or terrifying, depending on what they do) to draw one. The reshuffle isn't a bad idea.

Hmm.. so you think players will have a hard time coping with a suit-ranking concept with r/p/s. OK, how about this idea instead - How about if the three cards you play have a dual meaning. Not only do the three strikes get compared against their counterparts played by the other player, but the three you choose have meaning as well, some kind of bonus if they're all the same suit, or if you have three-of-a-kind (with a lesser bonus for a pair) or a straight (and the best bonus being for a straight flush as in 4-5-6 of the same suit), that kind of thing. This would be interesting as it would simultanously give jokers a reason to exist (as a wild card) and also give players a reason not to necessarily choose the three highest ranked cards they have if they think they can make some kind of matched set.

How would this be used? Well, maybe the number of strikes you get against your opponent determines who hits whom, but the "hand" your three cards make determines how much damage you inflict? So you have to decide if you play the Ace of Spades, the Jack of Clubs and the Ten of Hearts, three very good cards but you wont do much damage, or do you instead play the Ten of Hearts, the Nine of Heatrs and the Seven of Hearts, less likely to get strikes but if you do the natural flush means you'll hit very hard. Of course this idea could carry over into non-combat situations as well, as a secondary degree of success.

Brian.

[Torrent]

This game has been swimming about in my head for the last few days.  I like Brian's idea of the sets of cards meaning things about damage.  Maybe you could have the idea of 'cashing' in cards at the end of the round for the damage.  A pair does 1, a triple does 2, TrumpFlushes do an insta-kill or something.

The suits already have meaning.  Perhaps the strikes that resolve can be narrated based on the suit of the winner.  A winning spade is an actual wound, a high heart would be more of the idea of winning by fear: my Wickedly Gleaming Hook situation from up in the thread.  

The other question I have is about how the cards actually get played.  So do you play all three right together and compare them one at a time, or all at once.  Or do you play them one set at a time?

On a sort of odd tangent in the vien of Blackbird.  Since your 'character' is essentially a base of 3 in all stats plus Booty/Plunder, I don't see having a character sheet being useful.  Perhaps you could cut 3x5 cards in half, which makes them the same size at playing cards.  Then players can carry the character and the deck together.

Random shot of ideas for the afternoon.

Torrent