Abstracted combat.

[myripad]

A friend of mine recently purchased the AD&D 3.5 PHB. He and the group he organized have asked me to run a game as I'm a fairly experienced referee. The problem is that I don't really like AD&D, and more importantly, I don't like abstracted combat.

I don't like abstracted combat because I find it impossible to describe what's happening in a battle when the rules are incompatible with reality. I know how innumerable things happen in each combat round that aren't explained by the rules, and I know that a single "attack" might be several little jabs, and that having a good "armour class" doesn't actually make you harder to hit, and that losing hit points doesn't mean that one's character is actually being physically hurt, and I know that the venerable warrior can't actually take more direct hits than the vigourous but inexperienced. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if I'd be able to explain all of this to a group of brand-new players, or even if I can deal with it myself.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm considering asking them to only use the AD&D books for inspiration and instead play a skill-based, less formal game. I do want to play with them, and I don't want to impose my "authority as DM" upon them, but I'm not sure how to reconcile my gaming style with AD&D. Should I even bother?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Myripad,

I took a few minutes to go back over your previous posts, to give me an idea of what sort of role-playing you did like, so check me on all of the following.

1. Friday Night Firefight (from first edition Cyberpunk) really floats your boat. I presume that certain aspects of RuneQuest, especially the Avalon Hill edition, would be good by you too.

2. You like a lot of player input through character actions - stuff like getting involved in whatever scheming's going on, stuff like deciding "ha! we'll steal it!" including such announcements which might even give the GM a good jolt ("uh oh"), and so on.

3. Resolution systems that demand a whole lot of "filling in" in terms of what actually physically happened in the game-world seem like they're dropping the ball, to you.

So far so good? If I'm even 75% right, then I suspect that latter-day D&D will serve your needs exactly as well as you anticipate it to - not at all. It is, as best as I can tell, very much a mix of grid-based wargame maneuvering (much like Chainmail except that the units are guys not squads) and option-based charater optimization (much like Magic the Gathering except that the units are guys not decks of cards - actions in modern D&D, though, are very much like combination plays in Magic).

In such a game, all of the actual causal events have to be filled in, in just the way you say that you don't like. In any version of D&D, for instance, the concept of the "saving roll" sounds like it would drive you right up the tree.

Again, if I'm off base, let me know. But it sounds to me as if you'd greatly prefer to use something like Harnmaster or - this is it! - the Burning Wheel, with all the D&D books just being around for inspirational color.

Although your thoughts on The Riddle of Steel would intrigue me. I'm not sure whether you'd like the Spiritual Attribute rules or whether they'd make your ears spew smoke.

In fact, that leads to another question: in your experience, what sort of reward systems have you really enjoyed in role-playing?

Best,
Ron

[myripad]

Recently, I've been using an extremely lazy and subjective system to determine rewards. Basically, we decide as a group what "makes sense." Generally, skills improve as characters use them, but not consistently at all. This works fine for my current group. We're playing a game that is a mish-mash of my old homebrew system, the "Friday Night Firefight" combat system (at your reccomendation, Ron), and SLUG (another system someone reccomended to me on the Forge).

And you're absolutely right, Ron - as far as I can tell, AD&D 3.5 is more of a wargame than anything else. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, of course, but it's not what I want to do.

I'm not really sure what I'm asking for here. What I really want is to run a Fantasy game with a system that I like, or perhaps a patchwork of systems. Really, I should just talk to the people in the group.

[timfire]

Question: Do you dislike "abstracted" combat in general, or do you dislike combat that seems unconnected to reality?

If it's the former, here's the ubiquetus answer: "All RPG's are abstracted."

But you're probably thinking the latter. If your friends are set on DnD, you can try searching for the "Grim-n-Gritty" d20 combat rules. If you want another system all together, you can try everyone's favorite, "The Riddle of Steel."

[myripad]

It's the latter. Or, perhaps, it's a matter of degree - everything is abstracted up to a certain point, but the difference between a combat system where specific injuries are described and one where they are not is a pretty big one.

I'll look for the "Grim-n-Gritty" d20 combat rules, though. Thanks.

[Christoph Boeckle]

As a former D&D GM, I guess those G'n'G rules are more what you'd like. Still, you should know that some characters (especially the rogue) have different rules (called shots f.ex.). Damaging magic has to be redone as well. Monsters might be tougher than those un standard D&D.
Remember though, once everything is said and done, these are d20 rules after all.

You can find a downloadable rtf file here and a pdf file here.
The pdf file should be the latest official version, as I got into contact with it's author, Kenneth S. Hood, who stopped developing it for the d20 system, and that was what he had told me was the last version.

Ironically, the last I heard from the author, it seemed he was a great fan of the Fudge system.

[myripad]

I talked to the group, and we are no longer playing D&D. We're using some of the same die values, and we're definitely keeping the books around for inspiration (although once everyone is finished making their characters, we'll probably never look at the books again). Thanks for everyone's help.

[adaen]

I realize that this thread is several months old, but I found it while looking for something else. I am very curious about what system(s) you finally decided to use. My own fantasy system, Aega Mythea, is currently being reassessed (at the core mechanic level) and the thoughts you struggled with (e.g., level of abstraction, etc.) are paramount to what I'm struggling with. Thanks.

Regards,

[M. J. Young]

Adaen--

I was going to say welcome to the Forge, but I realized you registered two years ago. It's fascinating to me that you've written five posts in two years; sometimes we have these statistics posts in which we wonder whether inactive posters are still around, and I guess you demonstrate that at least some of them are.

It happens that this is not "several months old". It was started less than a fortnight before your post, and the last post to it was only eleven days before. No foul there.

However, for reference, if a thread is old (usually designated by the fact that it's no longer on the first page of threads) it's protocol here to start a new thread and include a link to the old one. If you don't know how to do that, a reference to it (such as title) will be sufficient for someone to find it and create a link.

Thanks.

--M. J. Young

[adaen]

Adaen--

I was going to say welcome to the Forge, but I realized you registered two years ago. It's fascinating to me that you've written five posts in two years; sometimes we have these statistics posts in which we wonder whether inactive posters are still around, and I guess you demonstrate that at least some of them are.

Thanks very much. Historically, I read a lot on the FORGE and post very little. Of late, my freetime is such that I don't even get to read that much. I'm still working on game development, albeit at  a very slow pace.

Regards,

Adaen