combat without the crunch

[madelf]

I'm looking for advice here. I expect it will most likely come in the form of recommendations for games to take a look at, and that's cool. (Hopefully it won't be expensive ones, but hit me with whatever)
Links to other pertinant threads would be great too, I'm afraid my thoughts are too vague for the search function to be much use.

I've always been more into role-playing my character than into combat, and as a GM I've run fairly long campaigns with relatively little combat involved. But every time combat came around (and sometimes it must - in most games) I dislike it. Too many numbers, too much rolling, too much time taken up with a boring old fight.

So I'm looking for a method of resolving combat (and I suppose task resolution in general - but it's more an issue with combat) in a very streamlined manner. Now I guess I could resolve it as a simple opposed task resolution... my fighting skill vs. your fighting skill, and roll the dice once to see who wins the fight... but I wonder if there is any sort of intermediate between the extremes of one roll and the fight is over, one of us is dead - and roll, roll, roll your dice for an hour everytime there's a combat.

I want a way for a combat to be really cool and "cinematic", and exciting, without it bringing play to a grinding halt.

I'd like something that would provide a nice satisfying feel to a combat, still keeping it meaningful, but not have it tie things up too long. Something that could still support the nuances of an easy take down vs a struggle where you come out the victor by the skin of your teeth and likely battered yourself vs you got your ass kicked, but you ought to see the other guy... and also resolve simply and quickly.

Any suggestions for where to start?

I like dice pools, so maybe there's some way to do a scaling thing with numbers of successes that reflects damage? Or maybe simply success, as success doesn't always mean damage... it would just show how well you did what you set out to do - whether that was kill the monster or just tie up the obnoxious npc.

Thoughts?

[SlurpeeMoney]

Alright, first and foremost I think we need to be looking at genre. Combat in a fantasy game is going to be a little more roll-intensive, if only because blow-by-blow combat is usually more interesting than a simple resolution mechanic. Modern combat can be as blow-by-blow as you like, but gun combat in particular is fast, confusing, and very deadly very fast. The majority of gun fights are over really really quickly.

Where are we playing? Who are we fighting? What are the tools of destruction?

~Kris
One shot, two shots, three shots, four shots
All I hear is gunshots
This is where the fun stops
Bodies drop, hit the floor, music's off, party stops
Everybody hit the door, somebody's clickin' shots off...

[Bill Cook]

For cheap, dirt simple conflict resolution, take a look at The Mountain Witch. Sorcerer also has a sturdy group conflict mechanic. I haven't checked out the supplements, but I believe &Sword has extras for fantasy combat.

Also: define your endgame and aggressively enforce it. "All is slaughter" is gamer think. At least in a metagame sense, the GM has to hammer the bell and raise the victor's arm, even if everyone's not dead yet or the good guys want to press on.

[Caldis]

I'd say check out Hero Quest.  Check the reviews section for Hero Wars and the independant forums for the Hero Quest forum.  You should find enough there to get an idea if it's what you're looking for, from what you describe I think so.

[Erling Rognli]

Take a look at The Shadow of Yesterday. I've fallen completely in love with that system, and I think it would suit your purposes too.

-E

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I'm going to throw you in the deep end, with Universalis, My Life with Master [Half Meme Press], Nine Worlds [Chimera Creative], and Primetime Adventures [Dog-eared Designs]; all have forums here at the Forge, so you can follow links from there.

What these games do is 180-opposed to what most long-time role-players are used to.

1. Combat is considered a form of conflict; the game mechanics are concerned with resolving the conflict.

2. The mechanical/ritualized means of resolution, whether dice or cards, provide a foundation for "who loses" and sometimes "how badly." They provide nothing at all about how it happened, which is handled fully through narration.

3. Narration often hops or skips about the table, which is to say, everyone is encouraged to participate, but "the buck stops" with a given person, and who that is can vary quite a bit.

Maybe I'm not being clear, so here's an example. Sally, Sam, Sid, and Steve are playing PTA. Steve has told the others that the bug-aliens have attacked the space station in force, and the "lower hull is being breached," right where Sally's player-character is. Here come the bug-aliens!

a) Steve states what the bug-aliens want and begin to do: to capture Sally's character for the queen-bug-alien larva gestating in her body, and (as soon as possible after that) to blow up the space station.

b) Sally states what her character wants and begins to do: perhaps to command the bug-aliens as the regent of the nascent queen, perhaps to seize her plasma rifle and start shooting, whatever.

c) Everyone else, whose characters are not in the scene, may contribute dice to either Steve or Sally depending on their preferences. They roll their own dice.

d) Everyone with dice rolls. Whoever gets the most "evens" (or odds, can't remember), totaled up within the two sides in question, succeeds. Period. They just do.

e) Whoever rolled the single highest number on the die gets to narrate the whole thing - yes, everyone's actions, all the characters. They can start way back in the scene, not just "Sally hits" or whatever, and they can bring in nifty new stuff too.

Notice that the narrator might even be someone who did roll, but whose character is not in the scene.

Not all of the games listed above are this "whoa." Universalis is even more so, MLWM is a bit less so.

If these are way too wacky for your current comfort zone, then I suggest Dust Devils, my own game Trollbabe, and HeroQuest, all of which permit the group to customize how "much" a given roll covers in a conflict. They both do this partly before rolling and partly after rolling, which makes for a very fluid, very perfect-to-the-moment degree of action. They also have who-narrates rules of various sorts, but typically with slightly more constraints than for the games mentioned above.

Best,
Ron

[madelf]

Ah, some great responses.
Let's see...

SlurpeeMoney:
I'm not sure genre is really what I need to pin down, and I don't actually want to pin it down too tightly just yet. I'm looking to piece together a system that, while not universal, is flexible enough to do anything from fantasy, to modern, to horror, to sci-fi, with only (perhaps) minimal modifications.

I believe this is possible because I don't consider genre to be all that important as a defining element in a particular type of story.  I think style and flavor is more essential to determine than genre. For instance, while typically fantasy gaming is often very hack and slash oriented, that doesn't (or shouldn't) define fantasy gaming. The hack and slash style is really a separate (and much more strictly defining) element of the game. So looking at it that way, whether my genre of the moment is fantasy or modern espionage, the style of the game could remain the same.

As to style, that I have pinned down a little better. I want a game which is fast paced and biased more to role-playing than combat. I want a game "gritty" enough where (regardless of the genre) you think twice before you pull out a weapon, or ball up a fist, because no matter whether the weapon is a yard of sharpened steel or a .45 semi-automatic pistol... somebody is very likely to get hurt, and hurt bad. And it just might be you. But when it does reach that point, I want the combat to be every bit as interesting and captivating as the rest of the game. I want it to be fun, even if it's scary, an adventure, an action movie extravaganza that leaves the character (and hopefully the player) shaking from the shock of what just went down. If it's a combat that takes 15 seconds game time, I want it to take 15 seconds real time (or as close as realistically possible). I want people going "Shit... what the hell just happened?"

And I want to do it without the sudden lurch as the players go into combat mode, the sheets come out, you add up modifiers and weapon stats, etc...bogging down what was a moment ago a smoothly flowing story as something that takes seconds in game time takes most of a game session to play out. I want the combat, fist fight, saber duel, gun battle, car chase, aerial dogfight, epic space battle... to flow just as smoothly, and have the same appeal as the casual banter and interaction of player characters meeting with the local lord, sheriff, DA, alien liaison.

bcook1971:
The Mountain Witch looks interesting. I bookmarked it and I'll definitely check it out a little closer.
Good point about the endgame, and it plays to what I want to do. Combat to achieve a particular goal should be far preferable over combat simply to kill your opponent (in fact, ideally...killing should only be a last resort or an unfortunate accident).
Thanks.

Caldis:
I'll take a look. Thanks.

Erling Rognli:
The Shadow of Yesterday looks good too. In fact, from reading the intro... it looks really good. I have some more reading ahead of me.
Thanks.

Ron:
The deep end is ok, I'm a decent swimmer. Not very graceful, but I can usually stay afloat even if I flounder around a bit. And Universalis is on my wish list anyway (along with Dust Devils).

Your examples all sound like they're more or less on track with what I'm looking for. I would like to include some shared-narrative stuff (or at least I think I would), but unfortunately I'm not familiar with that style of play, so I'm really not sure how much is to my taste (makes it tough to pick). From reviews I've read, Universalis sounds very interesting to me in a hypothetical sort of way, but it also sounds like it would be a very odd way to play if used fully as intended. So I actually might try starting in the shallower end of that particular pool.

Anyway, I'll take a look at what information is available on all of those and see what sounds most interesting.

Thanks.

[Callan S.]

Hi Calvin,

Why are fights boring?

Could we get a rough transcript of how you imagine an exciting fight would go?

[madelf]

Hi Noon.
To answer your first question, fights (in and of themselves) aren't boring. In action movies they're exciting, in real life they're scary, in books they're... whatever the author wants you to feel about them, but generally not boring. The way fights are represented by nearly all of the rpg games I have played is boring. To me at least.

There is probably a good reason for that. Most of my play experience has been with things like D&D, Hero System, and Shadowrun. Not exactly a rules light line up there. At the worst is my experiences with D&D - where a combat that takes at the most a few minutes in game time can literally take multiple game sessions to resolve.

Although it may place me in the "heartbreaker" corps, I am forced to admit that a lot of the things I currently desire in a game are probably greatly influenced by what I dislike about D&D (which is nearly everything - maybe I should just ask for the exact opposite). Hero System has some stuff I like but isn't much better for resolving combat quickly. Shadowrun is about the best of the three and it's pretty bad. I've had a little better luck with things like the old WEG Star Wars system, but that's not what I'm looking for either. I'd say my most satisfying experience with combat was probably with the old Marvel Superheroes game, but I don't want to be bothered with the charts (and I'm not sure how well the system would handle other styles of play).

I think it probably comes down to the amount of things to keep track of. The more things to keep track of, the more hoops you have to jump through to get to the point of resolution in a conflict, the more it slows it down. I say that if something (combat or anything else) slows the game down, then it also needs to increase the drama & tension at the same time, not just increase the motions you have to go through. Otherwise it makes the slow-down boring.

A transcript of an exciting fight?
I'm honestly not sure how to give one in game terms. If I knew of a method to do an exciting fight in game terms, I think I'd have my system. All I know is that I want fights to flow like the rest of the game rather than have them act like an anchor, slowing the game to a crawl.

That's why I was thinking that simply turning combat into an opposed task resolution might be approaching the right answer. It sounds good on the surface... the players roll out an opposed task resolution using a dice pool system, bonus successes (over those required to "win") determine the degree of success and the GM (or somebody) narrates the details of the outcome... but I don't know if it's actually going to work that nicely in reality. It would be nice if it was that simple (and from reading Ron's examples, perhaps it can be - I'll be keeping my fingers crossed).

[M. J. Young]

I'm going to toss two more ideas on the pile.

One is Legends of Alyria. The conflict resolution system determines who prevailed in the contest. It doesn't mean that a shot was fired or anyone was injured or anything--that's left up to the narration of the situation, essentially. Thus you could have a situation where the short fiesty girl defiantly stares down the guy with the gun and he backs off and leaves the room. The question answered by the dice is not how it happens, but who is favored by the outcome.

The other is from Multiverser's mechanics. Combat can be very crunchy in Multiverser; but mass combat is frequently handled en masse by using the general effects roll mechanic. In essence, 3d10 are rolled. There's a chart to define the outcomes, but the short version is that 3 means something incredibly good happens, 16 and 17 mean that things are pretty much unchanged, and 30 means something almost unbelievably bad happens--both good and bad taken from the perspective of the player character.

Used in mass combat, the current situation is assessed and the dice rolled, and then a consideration of how good or bad the dice suggest the outcome to be is applied to the current situation. If things were hopeless a moment before, a very good roll starts to turn the tide. If things were good a moment before, even a moderately good roll can bring about major advances.

Also in Multiverser, comparitive relative success is sometimes used when characters are opposing each other actively. Using a system by which low succeed and high fails but the higher the roll the more successful it is (as long as it doesn't cross the line to failure), the system provides several simple ways through which one character's successful roll is pitted against another's to find a reduced level of success for whoever had the better roll. For combat purposes, you could have both sides roll dice, subtract the lesser from the greater, and the difference is the degree to which the one side has overcome the other. The rest becomes interpretation of what that means.

It should be noted that games which reduce crunch (particularly in combat) usually do so by injecting a subjective element--someone decides what happens to a much greater degree, as opposed to being given what happens from the numbers.

I hope this helps.

--M. J. Young

[John Uckele]

Here's an idea for a simple yet cinematic combat system:

Each character has a combat skill and then you roll them against each other. This constitutes a round of combat. The winner tips the scales by one point. When the scales are against you by value X (either a constant, a GM determined value per fight, or a character value) you are defeated.

This makes it so that you have lets say two numbers. Combat and destiny. You can loose a certain number of destiny points before defeated (town guards only usually have one, so it's usually a quick combat). Evil villains have far too many, thus making the conflict an epic duel that tilts back and forth.

Just playing with ideas.

[apparition13]

Hi there,

One of my favorite little game discoveries is a Fudge version of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" by Michael S. Gentry.  The link on the Fudge Links page seems to have gone dead, but you can find it here using web.archive.org's wayback machine.  The link is directly to the combat page;  links to the rest of the game are at the bottom of that page.  What I like about this is that each character makes one roll each round which, when compared to the opponents roll, covers what typically involves separate initiative, to hit and damage rolls.  The damage itself is pretty cinematic, but that could be modified to make it more lethal if desired.  Overall quick, simple, very non-crunchy.  It's also abstract, so should you desire to go with "system in the middle" resolution it'll be a good fit.  In fact, I'd say it almost demands it.

Incidently, of the three BtVS games I've seen, 2 Fudge and the Eden Studios commercial one, this is by far my favorite;  clean, simple and chock full of that Buffy goodness.

[Yokiboy]

Here's an idea for a simple yet cinematic combat system: <snip>

That's basically FUDGE right there, and on that note I have to recommend my current favorite FATE. They have three different combat resolution mechanics, all based on the same simple rule. And FATE's free, so please check it out!

I'm currently using FATE for a narrative roleplaying campaign, and the results have blown me away! I take every opportunity I can to tip my hat to Ron Edwards and his Sorcerer game, it opened a whole new world for me. Just like you madelf, D&D was driving me insane!

I had a group of 6 players that loved my D&D campaign, yet I hated it, and in the end the hatred grew too big and I had to end it. Unfortunately I didn't TPK the characters, so they're still bugging me about a return - they just don't know what they're asking for yet.  ];)

TTFN,

Yokiboy

[simon_hibbs]

That's why I was thinking that simply turning combat into an opposed task resolution might be approaching the right answer. It sounds good on the surface... the players roll out an opposed task resolution using a dice pool system, bonus successes (over those required to "win") determine the degree of success and the GM (or somebody) narrates the details of the outcome... but I don't know if it's actually going to work that nicely in reality. It would be nice if it was that simple (and from reading Ron's examples, perhaps it can be - I'll be keeping my fingers crossed).

Scene resolution systems, as described by Ron, do work and definitely have their place, but they also have their limitations.

On the plus side they lead to pretty rapid resolution, and give the players, or at least whoever gets (or shares in) narration rights a lot of latitude for creativity.

On the minus side, they also tend to lead to a degree of dissociation between the player and the character. This is because if I don't win narration rights, somebody else gets to narrate what my character does, what choices the character makes, etc. In fact some such systems don't even incorporate a one-to-one mapping between players and character so in some sense aren't realy roleplaying games. One of the great joys of roleplaying is the sense of immersion you get from 'being' your character, and the more abstract forms of narrative resolution can blunt that feeling of personal involvement in favour of group authorship of a shared narrative.

Universalis is probably at the extreme narrativis end of the scale to the point of arguably not being a roleplaying game. HeroQuest is porbably on the traditionalist end of the scale. It 'feels' like a roleplaying game, there's a on-to-one player and character mapping, yet it incorporates a lot of narrativist concepts.


Simon Hibbs

[madelf]

More helpful stuff. This place rocks.

I don't have a lot of time right now (I'm supposed to be working), but...

M.J.
I kind of like the Legends of Alyria concept. It makes it so I don't need to worry  about weapon stats or anything, just play. I like that idea a lot. I also like the comparative levels of success from your Multiverser example.

Now your general effects roll is interesting. It strikes me that it might be possible to use that as a sort of plot driving device. Almost like an augury. In any given situation, a roll could tell whether the situation is going to get worse, the current situation endures, or things go right in the toilet. I don't know if you're using it that way, but it sounds like it could be a fun thing to include  as something to provide inspiration for the GM or narrator. If you're not sure which way you want to take the story, just roll.

John:
That "tipping the scales" idea sounds pretty cool too. That might actually be more fun in some situations than a simple comparative method to show difficulty. Rather than one roll... you win, but it was tough – there would still be a roll off, so the number of rolls needed would show how tough the combat (or other undertaking) was. There would be that dramatic back and forth struggle, but it could still be abstracted enough to flow smoothly.

And it could be combined as an option with a single roll resolution as the default...I'll get back to that in a second.

apparition13:
I'll check out that link. Thanks.

Yokiboy:
I actually have Fate kicking around my hard drive somewhere, but I've never gotten around to looking closely at it. Guess I'll have to do that. Thanks.

Simon:
Wouldn't that loss of control drawback depend on how it was played out? I mean, I would think it should be possible to abstract the combat and still allow the player some power over their character.  After all, when your character takes a massive amount of damage in any other game and goes down, that's not really in your power. Would it be that much different if two players stated their intent, the dice are rolled, you loose, and somebody narrates the exact details? Heck, you could probably even have the loser narrate the details of what happened. The dice results will ensure the severity, the rest is just flavor.

It's also interesting that you bring up the one-on-one player character mapping. That's something I've been thinking about too. I've always thought the typical party construct (the "you all meet in a bar" effect) in rpgs was pretty contrived. It works good for the dungeon delve or quest game, but it feels odd to me in almost every other circumstance , and I'd like to be able to get away from that a bit. I've considered trying (as part of my shared narrative attempt – and inspired by reading about Universalis) to allow players to have multiple characters, both PC and NPC – both protagonist and antagonist, which may appear in different scenarios at different times. I think this would allow for a more free-form experience with multiple storylines, greater player involvement during times where one character is spotlighted, etc. It could even move the game to a near "GM-less" level (I probably wouldn't go quite all the way though, I'm kind of attached to the idea of a GM to guide the plot and keep things on track)

This might be drifting toward the "not an rpg" side of things, but it sounds cool to me.  As an example, I watched the Guy Ritchie movie "Snatch" last night. If you're familiar with it, you might remember that there's a fairly large number of characters (none of which you can really point to and say the movie is about them - well, maybe Turkish, but not by much), all going about their business relatively oblivious to one another except when circumstances throw them together, yet they are all wrapped up in a single tangled plot. I would love a game that played out like that movie.

Getting back to that combined resolution thing:
I find I really, really like what Clinton did in the Shadow of Yesterday (which I took some time to read last night). The thing he did in that game that I thought was most interesting was the "Bring Down the Pain" mechanic. Where, if the outcome of a simple one roll conflict resolution was for some reason unpalatable, it is possible to sort of zoom in... and go to a round by round resolution. What was cool is that even in the round by round, there is no real requirement for the sort of traditional combat I'm used to because "damage" is not necessarily injury, "weapons" and "armor" are really only advantages, and the outcome of each round is still abstracted around the intentions of the characters. Suddenly there's this slow-motion detailed unfolding of the events (enhancing the drama) without all the baggage of traditional mechanics, and it can be zoomed back out to the speedy task resolution style at any moment where the slow motion style is dragging out more than necessary. You're not trapped into a long, drawn-out and pointless exercise in going through the motions to determine the outcome of the combat. It's only slow when it matters.

That is cool.