Speed tip for highly detailed combat

[Blankshield]

Riddle of Steel has very simple combat rules that interact in a very complex fashion. It's very clearly an example of b) -Jake has been pretty clear about wanting the combat system to simulate his understanding of real fighting, as experienced with ARMA. That requires active choosing *during combat*, which means you can't short-circuit it by doing the number crunching ahead of time without breaking the intent of the rules.

I flatly disagree with not being able to do number crunching ahead of time. You do understand that these 'if' statements I keep going on about are controlled by player choice? That you can generate material ahead of time, if you design it so that pre generated material can be influenced by player choice. Things like 'if the PC is swinging an axe, this result happens' and 'if the PC is doing an upper cut, this result is applied'.

Callan, have you played Riddle of Steel?  The end result of a single combat pass (a level 2 cut to the left knee, to pull an example from last night) is a cascading end result of several independent choices from different people and independent fortune mechanics.  Trying to build all the possible results, or even a useful subset of them, ahead of play would be not only incredibly difficult, it would be time and effort far and away beyond the benefit.  I'm talking spending hours to save seconds, and I'm honestly not sure it could be done.

I do understand what you are saying about choice affecting the table result, but that doesn't make it any less a table lookup.  All you are doing is compressing multiple tables - instead of having a table for axe results and a table for uppercut results, you put both into one table.  That's just efficient design.

And were not just talking some fixed result. It'll be a unique result, generated so it's always different. When I mentioned tables, the GM isn't working from them...he's using the books to make a list of results to work from...basically making a table himself, then working from it.

Ok.  Still a table lookup; you're just making new tables all the time.  I'm not sure where I see the extra value in rebuilding a table that will, pretty much inevitably, have many results in common with it's predecessor.

"why do it in play, if you can do it beforehand?" and I'm responding with "If you can do it beforehand, why didn't the guy who wrote the rules do it beforehand?"

If your generating something randomly, your going to end up with something different each time from the same rules (the rules for wound X or whatever). That's the only reason why it can't be done by the designer before hand.

Ok.  I think I agree that we're at the point where I would need to see an example of what you're talking about, or we'll just keep talking past each other.  I'm having a hard time seeing what you're talking about as anything but building a table that (if a table is desired) should already be there in a well-designed game.

[Callan S.]

Yeah, played TROS a bit. It's on the cusp of complex results, but not exactly like some of the complex designs I see suggested here (cred to Jake for not going over the line design wise, IMO).

Mostly they seem to consist of many interacting numbers. The whole idea seems to be that the more numbers you have interacting, the more representative that result is of some quality (it's usually said to be realism).

This leads to stuff like 'now take the number you just generated, round it down and apply it to the bone marrow rating of the target. If it's between half and 3/4 of that rating, then add on point to the continual overextension check. If it's higher, then...'.

Before they actually get to anything that will be noticable to the group, it goes through a number of complex calculations. The ironic thing, is that the people who design these have (IMO) to many calculations already, but instead of going the whole hog and really doing all the math they want, they cut back for time reasons. IMO, it's unwieldy (it still takes too much time) and still doesn't forfil the designers dream.

Now, what if you could do this stuff in advance? Hell, if someones designed something with this much math, it clearly isn't a burden on them to do the math...whether thats during or before play. So that's not a prob.

Why can't you do it in advance? Well, because player input must be taken into account. Well, player input and PC stats, usually (lets face it, there is a difference between the two).

Or perhaps you can take player input into account. It depends on how you look at how most of these complex designs work. Where does the player input/PC input come into effect?

For example, if you get hit by a really strong sword strike and roll it during play...how much are you going to change that sword strike into a mere nick? Your not. Your stats might lessen it a bit or more (and if your handling that fairly simply like TROS does, its something you can still do at the table), but its still a womper of a sword blow.

Why slowly go through determining the womper of a sword blow during play, when you know it's wompum damage will suffer very little influence from the player? Why can't you figure out the majority of the effects in advance and some of these have 'if' statements. Eg, if you have 5 dex, you loose one less finger from the blow (from a reflexive draw away). (the number of fingers you did loose was determined in advance, since we'll assume something more complex than 1D6-1 was used)

Likewise, even if your to hit rolls are complex as well (more complex than TROS), a similar method can be used with them too.


Now, perhaps I'm not estimating the design goals of these designers correctly and this is way off. But despite dozens of numbers being drawn together in these designs, it doesn't mean all those numbers will effect things dramatically (ie, they often average out...you don't often shrug off a shotgun blast at short range). Or that because your drawing from all these numbers during play, your not ending up with a results which, at their core, have a predictable range.

I'm basically looking at exploiting the basic math of most of these complex system, so as to be able to do most of the work ahead of time with little resolution loss (perhaps even an increase, as you can add to the complexity).

I needed to establish this idea before I can give a rough example, otherwise the example probably wont be seen in the light it needs (since it'll be rough...I'm not even into complex systems, remember!)

[Bill Cook]

I noticed something along these lines in playtesting BW. This is how you process a sword Strike:
[list=1]
[*]Roll skill in six-sided dice. Count results of four and higher as a success.

Sword (5) rolls for four successes.

[*]If the target has scripted a Block, roll skill in six-sided dice; successes count against the Strike.

The blocker rolls Sword (4), plus one shield die from his parrying blade; one success, only!

[*]For a margin equal to or greater than the obstacle, roll protection dice that armor offer; add the sword's VA to DN; one or more success defeats the Strike, regardless of margin.

The target has a chain shirt, whose three dice grant success on results of four or higher. The sword's VA is one, requiring rolls of five or higher. No successes are rolled!

[*]For a margin equal to or greater than the obstacle, subtract it and divide by the sword's Add to scale the wound by IMS category.

A margin of three minus an obstacle of one divided by an Add of two equals one. One category above Incidental indicates a Mark result.

[*]Reference the sword IMS on the character sheet for the pre-formulated pip count.

"Sword (4), I 3 M 7 S 11" is written on the sheet. A Mark result is worth seven pips.

[*]Reference the target's PTGS to rate the wound category by IMS. Apply its wound penalty.

"Su: 2, Li: 4, Mi: 6, Se: 8, Tr: 9, Mo: 10" is written on the sheet. Seven pips is a little better than a Midi wound. The wound penalties are easy enough to memorize. (Su: +1DN, Li: +2DN, Mi: -1D, Se: -2D, Tr: -4D, Mo: Slay) Tally a -1D wound penalty on the target's sheet.
[/list:o]

Well, I thought, all that matters is the wound penalty. I made one mechanical change and two procedural ones: (1) fix PTGS to two-pip steps, (2.1) group the margin in dice according to a particular arrangement and (2.2) pre-formulate wound penalties instead of IMS.

[*]4. Order successes in a column up to the obstacle. Treating the column as one success, complete an island up to the Add. Group the remaining successes, likewise. The island count rates the wound category.

Stack the first success as a column of one. Complete the island with the next success. Separate the third success as a second island. Two indicate a Mark result.

[*]5. Reference the sword IMS on the character sheet for the pre-formulated wound penalty.

"Sword (4); -1DN, -1D, -4D" is written on the sheet. A Mark result reduces pools by one die.
[/list:u]

The main drawback is loss of mortality-expressed unit variety. This could be re-captured by fixing three PTGS scales: man-sized, horse-sized and troll-sized. The main gain is getting to what matters more quickly.

[Blankshield]

Mostly they seem to consist of many interacting numbers. The whole idea seems to be that the more numbers you have interacting, the more representative that result is of some quality (it's usually said to be realism).
[...]
Before they actually get to anything that will be noticable to the group, it goes through a number of complex calculations. The ironic thing, is that the people who design these have (IMO) to many calculations already, but instead of going the whole hog and really doing all the math they want, they cut back for time reasons. IMO, it's unwieldy (it still takes too much time) and still doesn't forfil the designers dream.
[...]
I'm basically looking at exploiting the basic math of most of these complex system, so as to be able to do most of the work ahead of time with little resolution loss (perhaps even an increase, as you can add to the complexity).

Ok, I see what you're getting at now, and to me, it sounds like you're discussing what I would consider my catagory A games: bad design.  Or I'll admit to the same possibility you do, that I am misunderstanding the intent, and the complexity is desired (my catagory B).

My basic point is that, if this is work that can be done before you sit at the table, it's conceivably work that the game designer could have done.  If they could have but didn't, it's either poor design, or they want the complexity they left in to be stepped through.

Without having a specific game or designer to actually query, I can't say which is which, but I would be inclined to put most of these games into catagory A, and blame kitchen-sinking.  (ie. the tendency to try and cover every eventuality with your rules instead of just having the rules cover what you want to be important to the game.)

James

[M. J. Young]

My basic point is that, if this is work that can be done before you sit at the table, it's conceivably work that the game designer could have done.  If they could have but didn't, it's either poor design, or they want the complexity they left in to be stepped through.

Without having a specific game or designer to actually query, I can't say which is which, but I would be inclined to put most of these games into catagory A, and blame kitchen-sinking.  (ie. the tendency to try and cover every eventuality with your rules instead of just having the rules cover what you want to be important to the game.)

O.K., let's say that I'm here. I'm the designer of a game which apparently qualifies in some ways as a complex game. Let me address these concerns first.

I'll admit that there were some things that could have been simplified in our earliest publications. We had gotten as far as suggesting to the referee in the game shortcuts appendix that he could do such simplifications in his own world and character designs, and we did them in our world books, but the rules themselves failed to include these bits, because at the point at which we were writing those we had not yet realized these. I'll get back to that.

You might reasonably accuse us of kitchen sinking. It was one of the design objectives that anything that any character could do in any game in any setting, even if not yet published, would be covered by the Multiverser rules system. In part this is because we foresaw Multiverser player characters becoming player characters in other games as a normal part of play, and that meant there had to be rules to control how equipment and skills which were not part of that other game would be handled if the character brought them with him, as well as rules to control how equipment and skills drawn from that other game would be integrated back into Multiverser play once the character left that world. Thus I make no apology for trying to cover everything. The game was intended to be about everything, and what was important to the game was making anything possible that was imaginable.

So let's look at a combat. I'm going to make it complicated. Let me note that combat can be really simple--two ordinary guys of equal ability going at each other with clubs or swords or something can come down to one rolls, then the other. The complexity of combat arises because characters elect to use skills and equipment that create complexity.

Our attacker is going to fire a kinetic blaster at point blank range.

To determine his chance to hit, we start with three scores that are innate to the character: his best relevant attribute (BRA) for technological skills, reflecting how well he understands technology; his skill ability level (SAL) for using the kinetic blaster, which tells us how good he is with this particular weapon; and his Ranged Strike Value (RSV), a score which is the average of his intuition and his hand/eye attributes reflecting his innate ability to aim at a target. The minimum total of these three scores (assuming the character is using a weapon he knows, and thus has an SAL) is 33. 45 is typical of complete amateurs, and reasonably skilled people are at 60. It is not inhuman for experts to reach 100, but it's extremely unlikely. 120 is the highest possible total for any being, including gods.

The next variable will be bias. Bias is critically important in play, because it is the score that makes things easier or more difficult according to the world in which they are used. This character might be able to use this blaster in a swords and sorcery world, but it won't be as reliable or as effective as it would be in a space opera world, and that's injected by bias. What makes it tricky is that both the world and the character have bias, but the lower of the two scores is the one that is used. Thus a space marine in a swords and sorcery world is going to lose the benefit of his own high tech bias, but a cavalier transported to a space opera world is limited by his own tech bias. A comparison has to be made between the character's bias score and that of the world. This usually has already been done, since the character will have been in the world for some time; but the lower bias score is doubled added to the chance of success.

It is possible for the world bias to be negative; this means that the chance of success could be lowered by as much as 30 because of the world bias. (There are other effects of negative bias I'm ignoring in this example; the blaster probably would not work in such a world.) If both the character and the world have very high biases, they could gain as much as 30 points for bias.

What we didn't realize when we were writing the rules, but managed to include in the First Book of Worlds, is that for a character who lives in a particular world, you can have all of that added already on the sheet with the character information. We use spreadsheets for our non-player characters, and particularly for combat numbers (but also for other skills which may be used frequently) these numbers are summed to save time. Thus the character information will include that the character has a base chance to hit with a particular weapon of whatever that base chance is.

However, this shot is being taken at point blank range. That means the attacker is so close to the defender that it's difficult to imagine him missing with a gun like this, so he gets +20.

Perhaps the weapon can be equipped with a scope. A scope is a separate piece of equipment, and the use of the scope requires a separate roll. (This is required because in a low bias world the player might fail to properly use the scope.) That check uses a similar procedure, but that there's no strike value included and there are no defensive values (still ahead) interfering with the use. Thus a roll is made to see whether the character uses the scope. With a scope, a successful roll probably adds a flat +20 to the chance of success. You might wonder at using a scope at point blank range, but since the amount of damage done is based on the roll, increasing the maximum possible roll means a greater potential for damage done.

Neither the scope nor the point blank adjustments could really be included prior to play, as they were decisions made during combat.

Blasters usually have adjustable power levels; I will assume this one is set on lethal damage, 1-20 intensities of damage.

The defender is now considered. All targets have a target value (TV), on the sheet as the average of intuition, agility, and density, representing the difficulty of landing a damaging attack on that target. (Inanimate objects also have target values, primarily based on density, which tells the probability that they would deflect the blow.) This is subtracted from the chance to hit. This particular defender is using his martial arts skill; once he has successfully rolled this body skill, he gains some protection against attacks--we will assume this one gives him -10 against the attack itself plus -10 against damage directly. He is wearing a flack vest under a combat space suit. The vest provides cover value, probably about -12 against the attack; this particular space suit provides no cover value (it does not reduce the chance of being hit) but instead disperses the force of a blow such that it creates a damage category penalty. That reduces the damage of the intended attack to dangerous, 1-10.

He also uses an evasive tumbling skill to get out of the way of incoming attacks. This particular skill allows that if his roll is successful, it is subtracted from the attacker's chance of success. It's typical for the chance of success on such skills to be around 45 to 50, but it could easily reach as high as 70 or 80. However, what matters is the value of the roll. If he uses the skill, and the die roll works, the attacker's chance of success is reduced by that amount.

Our defender is a combat monster. His damage value (DV), an average of his stamina, resistance, density, and will power, is a second level score. That means that if he's hit, he divides all damage by two and discards fractions.

Once the attack is rolled, there's really very little left to do. In this case, which is a particularly complicated one, if it succeeds we have to reduce the damage category of the weapon from lethal to dangerous (the combat space suit), subtract ten from the roll (the martial arts damage adjustment), convert from the percentile value to damaging damage (shift the decimal point one place left and round up), and then divide by two and toss the fractions (for the damage value).

Why slowly go through determining the womper of a sword blow during play, when you know it's wompum damage will suffer very little influence from the player?

Because it's not like that at all. The damage the sword blow will do is entirely dependent on what the players do and what they roll. If in this example the defender got a high roll on his evasive tumbling, he could reduce the attacker's chance to hit to (for example) 11%. If the attacker rolled above eleven, it would be a miss. If he rolled below 11, his ten points to be converted to damage would be reduced to zero by the martial arts subtraction, and he would do no damage. If he rolled 11, he would hit the defender, but because the defender is so tough the resulting 1 would convert to one intensity of damage, then divided by the level two damage value to give a total of one half, which would be discarded, meaning that the scratch taken was meaningless.

In other words, yes, I have seen players facing bulldozers and bombs and artillery walk away with minor injuries or even unscathed, because they had the skills and equipment to counter the attacks and they had a few good rolls when they needed them.

When players do this in combat, a large part of play is about outmaneuvering the enemy by fighting smarter and avoiding serious injury. The decisions are made in play because they are tactically useful; their effectiveness is adjudicated in play. I can't know in advance what a player will use or do. I've got a guy who likes his evasive tumbling skill, and I keep a note of what he needs to roll for it to work in his current universe. On the other hand, the last time he was in a bind he went for a psionic force shield instead. That would be a different skill, a different defense, the effect of which would have to be considered in calculating the chance of success on the attack. Having options is very much part of the game. The fact that nearly any skill can be adapted for use in combat if the player desires increases those options beyond the ability of the referee to predict.

So, the floor is open for questions to the game designer.

--M. J. Young

[Callan S.]

Hi MJ,

In other words, yes, I have seen players facing bulldozers and bombs and artillery walk away with minor injuries or even unscathed, because they had the skills and equipment to counter the attacks and they had a few good rolls when they needed them.

No, I meant if the damage is applied. If you have attack rolls which are simple enough to do during play (and defence rolls are likewise) and all that means the damage isn't applied, then its cool. But if it is a hit, then why work through the damage slowly during play. You can figure out the wompum damage in advance and then remove the parts that don't apply to the PC during play.

That said, I think you've got one primary design goal that differs from the one my suggestion works from, and that is the goal of encompassment.

My suggestion did take encompassment into account, but not as a primary goal. More that encompassment was there to support the goal of rich results.

By that I mean...well, I'll quote James to give context

My basic point is that, if this is work that can be done before you sit at the table, it's conceivably work that the game designer could have done. If they could have but didn't, it's either poor design, or they want the complexity they left in to be stepped through.

Imagine a treasure chart which is really quite complex, but gives quite detailed results. Even more detailed than this rough example
Battle Axe
Chipped blade: May shatter on iron or better helmets (not bronze)
Different center of gravity: Shorter characters add one to damage because of how it swings.
Ragwood handle: X chance to slip out of hand when wet (ie, its raining).
And so on.

So, these are lots of fiddley attributes the treasure (in this case, an axe) can have. It's not stuff the designer can roll in advance, but also it takes time to roll up (not a good idea to do in play). But at the same time, all these funky attributes will interact with the PC's skills, stats, situation and player choices. They will interact, even though its made in advance of play. Now, imagine instead of a treasure table, its a wound table. With lots of fiddley interaction bits as well for each wound (should I give an example? Its just like the axe example but all wound related).

Basically that's what I thought was the main goal with the complex designs...rich results. Wounds are like a type of treasure for them, I thought.

But for encompassment, if your gaming pleasure doesn't come from rich results but from thinking you took everything into account in your rendering, then perhaps this suggestion doesn't hit the mark.

[Blankshield]

You might reasonably accuse us of kitchen sinking. It was one of the design objectives that anything that any character could do in any game in any setting, even if not yet published, would be covered by the Multiverser rules system. In part this is because we foresaw Multiverser player characters becoming player characters in other games as a normal part of play, and that meant there had to be rules to control how equipment and skills which were not part of that other game would be handled if the character brought them with him, as well as rules to control how equipment and skills drawn from that other game would be integrated back into Multiverser play once the character left that world. Thus I make no apology for trying to cover everything. The game was intended to be about everything, and what was important to the game was making anything possible that was imaginable.

(Emphasis mine) The bits I pulled out of there are all I really need to know: you, as a designer, have desired complexity.  I'll caveat this by saying I haven't (yet) read or played Multiverser, so can't really evaluate the game, but obviously the design intent is there.

Callan: re your treasure example, that is exactly the kind of thing I think the designer should generate in advance.  Rather than making you either roll through a complex process during play to generate a unique item, or spend a crapload of time ahead of play to generate a bunch of unique items, the designer should do that work for you, and present a table with a huge number of unique items.  I would suggest that, in fact, TROS does this with it's wound tables.  Jake could have presented a complex process for wound generation, but instead he did that work ahead of time, and generated a bunch of tables that give you the 'whole bunch of unique results' necessary.

James

[Bill Cook]

What TROS gains in figuring complex damage results beforehand is lost in the time spent looking it up. It's a known issue; many TROS players recommend copying the damage tables into their own booklet for ease of reference. Then, just like in D&D, where you had this guy lookup spells for you, in TROS, you have one player find and read damage results.

[Blankshield]

What TROS gains in figuring complex damage results beforehand is lost in the time spent looking it up. It's a known issue; many TROS players recommend copying the damage tables into their own booklet for ease of reference. Then, just like in D&D, where you had this guy lookup spells for you, in TROS, you have one player find and read damage results.

Hmm.  I don't want to get into a TROS holy war here, as it would be fairly off-topic to go there, so I'll confine myself to saying I've never had any problem finding the appropriate result in very short order; one person keeps the book open to the charts whenever there is a fight, and it never takes more than a few seconds.

More germane to the topic though, I am not claiming that TROS damage tables are the be-all and end-all, but I will assert that they are easier to use than it would be to codify and follow whatever criteria Jake used to build the table every single time a blow lands.  That process, if it exists anywhere but Jake's head and in his design notes, almost certainly takes up more space to explain and more time to use.

James

[Hereward The Wake]

The simplicity of design will reduce the time taken to actually carry out the combat. Most rules try to incorperate the kitchen sink into the system and there fore bog down speed of play. Most systems which claim to be simplistic still incoperate too much detail, or apply basically the same level of detail to all involved, where as really all we need to know about is when the important people get involved. So if i chop a bad guy, in the arm say. i don't need to work out the specifics of how much actual damage i did, only if it was enough to take him out, imobilise the arm, or enough to let him carry on. Those 3 results can be achievd quickly and simply. Basically I see it that it is the root of the system that speeds up the play and the emphsis of the players, If you want fast play then you have to loose some detail, at least in some areas, if you want detail you get a slower game, you can't have both, unless you get a niffty piece of gadgetry that allows it.

Jonathan

[Callan S.]

James,

Ah, this is probably more of a space issue thing. Say I have room for either 100 entries (wound details) or I can use that space to list rules that have 100,000 variations (basically like a table with 100 k of entries). And I design it so they can be pre rolled.

Typically it a time or space issue; you can't list all these neat things because that uses too many pages. And you can't use tables during play because it eats up too much time.

Here I'm tackling it with pre rolled stuff. Stuff the author could do himself, but doesn't have space in the book for. And lets say the authors intent is not to limmit himself to 100 entries.