Working out combat, need some opinions

[MachMoth]

Greetings All,
    I've been working on a system over on RPG-Create at Yahoo for a while now, but I've started 4 out of the last 5 threads over there, and they're probably ready to take a break from me.  Anyways, I've got the character creation and resolution worked out, and now I'm working out some combat specific issues.  Here's the system in general:

Skill resolution is die pool style.  Each character rolls 1d10 under or equal to difficulty per skill level.  Ten's are zero's (its what's on most of em' anyways) and always succeed.  Default difficulty is 3.  Players also get a 1d12 they roll with it.  It produces less successes, but adds a heroic edge.  I also use it for some character advancement.

Characters.  Character statistics are stored on a grid.  On the grid are placed the characters skills, each one in a block.  For a skill to be placed next to another, it must be related somehow (like how a muscle skill would relate to climbing).  Each skill also has a level, and experience.  When the experience goal is met, the level goes up, and the goal doubles.  When a character puts a point into a skill, its experience goes up by an amount equal to highest skill adjacent to it.  It's kind of like Pinwheels, but freeform.  Also, if a character rolls a 12 on his 1d12, he gets a free point in the skill he used.

Now comes combat.  So far, I know game time will be abstracted into stories, scenes, and shots.  A shot is a single unit of time, focused on one set of actions.  So, instead of combat focusing on one person and one action, it focuses on all related actions as one shot, and one resolution.

I'm deciding if this type of game would lend well to player narration.  I had originally pictured something along the lines of DONJON (dude, your game rocks), but thought I might limit player narration to their own characters status and actions, giving them a pool of narration points to adjust their level of successes.  Though I also like giving players free reign, I don't want people to see this as a DONJON rip off.  I thought of this before ever discovering DONJON, but there are, none the less, similarities.

[Andrew Martin]

Hi, welcome to The Forge!

Also, if a character rolls a 12 on his 1d12, he gets a free point in the skill he used.

So, on average, every twelve rolls by a player, the appropriate skill gets a point? So if my group plays for six hours (a long afternoon), and makes, say, 12 rolls per hour (one roll per five minutes), that's around one point per hour for every player? And if it's combat, like in a dungeon crawl, where we make a roll every 60 seconds, that would be about 5 points per hour? Is this intentional?

Players also get a 1d12 they roll with it. It produces less successes, but adds a heroic edge.

I'm a but puzzled by this, as it seems from my own experience that heroic action is only produced when players can rely upon success from their rolls for their characters. How does less successes produce heroic behaviour from the players?

By the way, what is the intent or goal of the system? What kind of behaviour is it intended to produce in players (and their characters) when players obey the rules of the system?

[Tony Irwin]

I'm deciding if this type of game would lend well to player narration.  I had originally pictured something along the lines of DONJON (dude, your game rocks), but thought I might limit player narration to their own characters status and actions, giving them a pool of narration points to adjust their level of successes.  Though I also like giving players free reign, I don't want people to see this as a DONJON rip off.  I thought of this before ever discovering DONJON, but there are, none the less, similarities.

Welcome to the Forge :-)

In Donjon player narration is used to set up some fun tension between the GM and the players. The players are narrating stuff that will help them beat down the GM's ideas and make their characters look cool, the GM is trying to twist the players' narration to his advantage and out fox the players.

Different games use player narration for some very different purposes, what kind of thoughts do you have as to its purpose in your game?

That kind of leads me into my next question which is what is your game about? Even if it's a generic system like fudge you can still have goals for what its meant to accomplish, specifically what will make it fun to play in. For example if I was trying to convince my friends to give it a go what should I say?

Figuring out a very broad design spec like that might make things easier - you can analyse possible combat mechanics in terms of whether they will help accomplish what the game is meant to be about. It can also help us suggest things that would add, rather than detract, to what you're trying to do with your game.

[MachMoth]

Okay, maybe I should explain the dice idea a bit more.  When any test is called for, the character (GM or Player) get 1d10 per level of skill.  So, level five roll against difficulty of 3 could yeild a [1,6,3,7,0].  10's are zero, so we have three successes (rolling less than or equal to).  Player characters also roll 1d12 in every pool they roll (in addition too the d10's).  So the test above for a player is 5d10+1d12.  A d10 has about a 40% chance of scoring success on average, while a d12 has a 25% chance.  That's a 1 in 4 chance of getting one more success than the opponent of equal level.  Thus, making a PC slightly stronger than equal opponents.  Also, is it comes up 12, then they get a point towards that skill.  It creates the organic effect of learning a skill as you use it.  However, if a GM feels a roll is blatent skill jacking abuse (pointless wall punching and the like), he can neglect the d12.  Reducing the chance of success, and eliminating growth for that roll.

As for my general goals, I suppose its something like this
- Balance combat rolls with other encounters.  Each combat will involve only a few more rolls than normal encounters, and won't drag on.  I'm looking for a cinematic feel, I suppose.

- Unique, customizable characters.  Skill growth is based on other skills, so the need for generic attributes are eliminated.  If you're good at, say, pickpocketing, then it could make you better with a dagger.  The player's decide how their skills tie together.  This eliminates the debate (well, dead debate) of whether strength or dexterity should be used with weapons.  The player gets to make that call, and it helps to shape them.

- Skills raise, both with use, and through awarded points.

- Because combat is so swift, and as a result, quite deadly,  I wanted to give the players more control over what happens to their characters.  For example, they decide when the character is wounded, knocked-out, tripped, etc.  However, they would not be invincible.  I was thinking of giving them a set of story points to use to adjust result in their favor, and they could take things like wounds and disadvantages to either reduce the need to spend them, or to regenerate them.  This is really the part I'm juggling with.  I think some form of narration mechanic would make this more interesting, and less, well, mechanical.  I just think I could do a better job then this.  Keep in mind, that the core rules do not call for any sort of HP skill, so it can be abstracted to any degree.

- I have a setting in mind, but I want it to be seperate.  The system will cover the basics, and be portable (not universal, just portable).  The setting will contain extra mechanics that I just don't feel are fitting for the core rules.  For example, the magic system doesn't fit the usual conception of magic, so it will be setting specific.

Here is a sample  aspect matrix that could be on a player's sheet.  Each skill has a name, level, and experience.  Putting a point into a skill, increases its experience by an amount equal to its highest adjacent skill.  So, a point into Muscle would raise it's xp from 42 to 46, because the Climb skill is level four.  The other three skills would go up by fives, because the highest skill they have is Muscle.

Code Select Expand


..........................................
.Climb...........Muscle..........Axe......
.Lv 4 ========== Lv 5 ========== Lv 3.....
.xp 20/40........xp 42/80........xp 15/20.
..................|.......................
..................|.......................
................Jump......................
................Lv 2......................
................xp 5/10...................
..........................................


[Mike Holmes]

In your primary post, what you seem to want to know is whether or not what you have is "conducive" to player narration. Are you literally asking if the players using these rules will want to narrate parts of their resolutions? If that's the question, I'd say no. Not that this makes your game, bad, just that it's pretty standard. What makes players want to narrate their resolutions is cool rules about how that gets done. Ala Donjon. Basically, if you want that, I think it could be added on. But I'm not seeing anything from you yet except something vague about some pool of points.

I'm feeling that we're not understanding what you're looking for. Can you restate it?

The skill matrix is pretty cool; I'd like to see what comes of this game.

Mike

[MachMoth]

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that because combat is so short (it needs to be to level out skill advancement), it could quickly turn on the players.  While the system could float by with combat having a quick and dirty, if the player die, that's how it is attitude, I want to give them more control over what happens.

Right now, combat is grouped into shots, instead of blow for blow.  Here's an example:
The scenario is a Hob-goblin wants to stop a theif from picking a locked vault, while a fighter protects him. [Insert dramatic sounding description of angry goblinoid charging thief.]

Assuming the thief chooses to focus on the lock. His shot would be lock-picking vs. the lock.

The hob-goblin's goal is to rend the thief asunder, however the fighter's goal is to prevent that. So, the these two are in the same shot.

First comes the duel betwee the fighter and hob-goblin.  If the fighter succeeds, he succeeds in blocking the hob-goblin. To what effect depends on not only his level of success, but also the skill used, and the players description of its use. Should the hob-goblin win, he will appear in the thieve's shot. The thief would then have to face the hob-goblin, make a brake for it, or use some other creative trick. Which ever way, that lock isn't getting picked just yet.

The goal here is to have combat flow with the same fluidity as the rest of the game.  I've heard this sort of combat referred to as engagement based, also.  I'm going to call it goal based, for no other reason than to keep myself focused.  Had anyone been assisting the fighter in blocking the hob-goblin, or any of his friends, than they all would have been in one shot, with one resolution to one goal.

Maybe narration isn't the best solution, but I want the characters to have some control in the event everything turns on them.  I also don't have any damage resolution rules yet.  What I think I'll do is not include combat into the core system, that way it can be setting specific.  In that case the system is done, and now I'm working on the actual game.

What's done on the game can be found at:
http://machmoth.tripod.com/rpg/SC.html

But, not much more is posted then what is here.  I haven't even began to write the combat or magic rules yet.

[Jason Lee]

The points idea isn't bad, but it means the ability to narrate is limited.  If you want to encourage player narration in combat, you don't have a damage system yet, and you're using dice pools...you might have sort of an easy out.

Make it the rule that the player defines how his character is injured.  Successes equate to severity (damage being one measure of severity).

Maybe something like:
1 success = minor effect, 1 damage, knockdown
2 successes = moderate effect, 2 damage, daze
3 successes = major effect, 3 damage, severed limb
...and so forth.

So, if my character gets hit for 4 successes of effect I could narrate it like a big gut wound (4 damage), grazed + knocked on ass + stunned (1 damage, knockdown, daze), or whatever.

We're building our system like this (the system is different), and in my experience it works really well if you nail down the laws of conversation (rules for interplayer dialogue involving resolution; who talks and when, how play is supposed to flow, stuff like that).

Oh, and I second Mike's opinion on the skill matrix being cool.

[Mike Holmes]

That's a bit better, MM. If I have it correctly, the idea that you're trying to facilitate by adding player narration abilities is character survivability in a combat system that's otherwise dangerous due to it being "Engagement Based". Do I have that right?

A quick note on the jargon used around here for reference. What you're calling player narration ability is often refered to as Director Stance, or Director Power, or some such. What you call Engagement Based, could be traslated around here to Conflict resolution for combat. So if you're reading anything else, and you come across these terms, they might be signals that the discussion is about something that might pertain to this problem.

Anyhow, giving players these abilities certainly is one solution to the problem. There are a lot of other ways to accomplish this as well, however. I'll quickly list a few:

There's the Metagame Points, which are similar to what you describe, but mostly act as "get out of jail free" cards. Typically they simply reduce negative results, or add to positive results, or cause rerolls of some sort. A good example of these is Hero Points from Hero Quest (formerly Hero Wars). These simply "bump up" a character's level of success.

There's effectiveness boosts. These are just areas of character power that can come into play. Basically, if you make the characters have enough power, they'll survive, right? But you don't want to simply make them enormously kickass, as that probably doesn't fit the style you want to see. So what you do instead is define circumstances under which they get the power up. For example, in TROS, the characters are quite mortal. That is, untill they start fighting for something that they care about. Then their "Spiritual Attributes" kick in, and they become much more likely to be able to take on foes successfully.

Another option, and one that people reject out of hand far to often, I'll mention anyhow. If you really don't want the characters to die, then don't make that a potential outcome of combat. The standard response is that this isn't "realistic" or that it reduces "suspense". But neither is true. That is "realism" in a RPG isn't really always the point, what you want is some sort of consistency. And that can be the sort of dramatic consitency that you see in movies and books, in which the main characters never die. And the suspense thing just doesn't hold up. You can still have characters lose fights, and not die, and the chance that this can happen is still very suspenseful. Yes, the player isn't risking the "ultimate" in RPG failure: being eliminated from the game. But that has it's own advantages, doesn't it?

And, lastly, to show the outside end of the spectrum of what can be done, you don't have to allow combat at all as such. Jared Sorensen has said that in literature of the sort that RPGs emulate, characters rarely get into combat per se. What they get into is a lot is fights. But these are no different than other conflicts in any substantive way. So, if you have a resolution system, then you don't have to have a combat system. If that's not registering, then you are stuck in the gaminbg Matrix, and may need the following to get out: Mike's Standard Rant #3: Combat Systems.

Anyhow, that's all just to try and put things in perspective. There are a ton of other ways to deal with this conundrum. In fact, what you've bumpedup against here is an age old problem that plagues all games. Basically, how do you make combat suspensefull with the possible ramification of player elimination as a "realisitic" outcome of these events, and yet not have PC death interfere with the continuation of character stories. Well, I've given some solutions above, but let's look at your suggested solution - player narrative power (thought I'd never get back to that, didn't you?).

Giving players this sort of power can be an extremely effective option if done correctly. Basically it avoids certain problems neatly. First, the characters don't have to become absurdly powerful, or even have power ups that may be seen as unrealistic by some players. Secondly, they can be very effective in making sure that the characters remain alive.

So what are the downsides? Well, they're very metagame. That is, players who like to feel that they're only in control of their character, that they more or less are the character in the game, feel that this sort of control takes them out of that mode. And their right. Some players can shift back and forth quickly without discomfort, but other's can't or won't. So you do have to worry about that sort of player. Fortunately they're not too common.

The other downside is that, while suspense isn't lowered because of character power (such as with D&D HP inflation), it can be lowered because a player with enough of such a player narration resource knows that he can win out. Looked at in a certain perspective, using up the resource is a negative, and something that a player can stress over a little, but if there's no real in-game cognate to the points, then, again, it's all rather metagame.

So, how do you "fix" these downsides. Well, the usual way is to make the narration resource based putatively on something in-game. The usual crock is to say that they points represent Karma, or some sort of generic heroism. This doesn't fool anyone, however, and certainly doesn't fix the second problem (suspense). The really cool solution to the problem is to link the effectiveness to some sort of character ability that represents some sort of trade-off of some sort for the character. So, they can fall back on using the ability, but doing so "hurts" the character in another way.

For example, in the RPG Paladin by our own host here, one has access to light and dark animus. If a player decides to have the character dig into his Dark Animus for effectiveness, the character slides down into darkness. Thus, suspense is maintained because the physical threat is turned into a spiritual one of the player's own devising. I can't tell you how much of an improvement this is over the standard metagame mechanic.

So, that's an example of one way that you can really get around this problem. Hopefully it'll give you some ideas as to what you want to do to incorporate such a mechanic so as to reinforce your game's vision. Does any of this seem to set off any thoughts on the subject?

Mike

[MachMoth]

Perhaps this is my chance to delve into the magic of the setting.  The story specifics are on the website, but basically, almost anyone can channel magic power.  Perhaps that can be their dipped-in power.  They usually need equipment to do it though, and so more powerful equipment can pull up more power.  I'm still working out the disadvantages.  For starters, metal nullifies the magic on a one-to-one basis.  A character using metal is less effected by magic, but can forget about casting it.  This could be my chance to really get the players to respect the fact that society has turned away from any use of metal.  Also, I want the rare Metal Focus Characters (characters born with the inability to use magic) not to turn out like the modern D&D dark elf.  "Please, can I be a good dark elf, Pleeeeaaase."  These characters are suppose to be at a serious disadvantage from society, with some serious baggage to boot.  The Magic is being designed to be useful to every clished character type.  Fighters can use it in battle, Rogues can use it with skills, and spell casters can use it the old fashion way.

I suppose combat's really not all that deadly.  Like you said, just because they lose a roll, doesn't make them dead.  In my earlier example, the hob-goblin would only get by the fighter, not kill him.  It depends on the goal of the shot.  In a world where your entire party could potentially know some sort of healing magic, I suppose there's nothing wrong with the possibility for one-hit knock-outs.  It wouldn't be hard to convert to a dark-fantasy genre.  And it might be more fitting for the setting.

[Mike Holmes]

Sounds good to me. Already your mechanic is looking to say something about the setting. Sounds neat. One of the really cool things about using magic as your metagamey mechanic is that it's easy to make it maleable. Basically, if it allows you to, say, automatically win a conflict, use of a point can be described as anything, as long as the outcome describes the win. Which is cool.

Mike