[Rules] Automatication

[Callan S.]

Does mechanical use matter if the situation in question is really interesting to the player? Like if their really interested in how a bullet hits body armour and is ablated (or not).

Could, perhaps, the rules become more interesting if players can add their own thoughts on exactly whats going on - instead of just a dice roll, there are dice that are added or subtracted depending on the discussion that's had about the bullet hit.

With the first line, I mean that your armour penetration rules could take thirty minutes to work out. But if the players are on the edge of their seat with excitement during those thirty minutes, thats fine. In fact, by reducing it, you'd be reducing the fun.

With the second line I mean that it may not be the rules, but that the player gets no input into the process. Doing sums for half an hour is boring. Doing sums for half an hour where you get to manipulate some of the numbers through discussions with the GM, can be quite alot of fun.

[TroyLovesRPG]

This is one of those threads where a few of the underlying ideas must be agreed upon. I've had real life discussions about if things are real or real AND about what is actually reality. It seems to go back to my first sentence in that reality must be agreed upon. Also, it seems that the thread is looking at combat rules and damage. That subject always hits the hardest because it determines if the character lives or dies most of the time.

With that in mind, it would be easy to look at statistics of injuries and fatalities in today's world and throughout history. You could limit the scope to only combat: the experiences in training for combat, the combat situations and recovery (if still alive). I knew a brilliant student who was active in ROTC and researched that data. His conclusions were very sobering. If you are in combat and never get hit by enemy fire or detonate a mine, you will survive to fight another day. If you do get injured: 30% instant death, 20% death during recovery (within days), 30% recovery with major disability (loss of limb), 10% recovery with minor disability, 10% recovery with obvious scars. I don't know the validity of those statistics and I'm sure the Army, Police and other military type organizations have that information. Its weird how life automatically makes things real. We don't have to roll dice or determine what happens.

I found in combat oriented RPGs is to find that happy medium of taking risks and surviving. I've had characters that died in the first combat round and a few who always survived. The games that were more realistic (rather oxymoronic) had high death rates and disabling injuries. Dying in an RPG doesn't necessarily take away the fun. The realism can actually be very dramatic and puts things in perspective: fighting fearlessly to the death is stupid.

Plausibility is still based on the agreement of the gamers and gives license to bend reality into any shape. A dragon breathes fire on a group of adventurers. The knight is wearing full plate, the rogue is in full leather, the monk has a heavy cotton robe and the mage is clad in a +5 bikini (it happens). Who will survive? Game wise, all of them can due to the rules concerning armor, dexterity and magic. Plausibly, the thief and monk do because of their naturally protective gear. Realistically, they all die from 3rd degree burns to their bodies. So, plausibility must still have its roots in agreement; otherwise, its arbitrary nature will make a lot of gamers very angry.

Its the GMs responsibility to use the rules to determine reality OR dictate reality based on his or her perceptions OR allow the gamers input on what is real. Regardless of the method, the players must know ahead of time what normal life will bring them and give them an idea of their chances in various situations.

For a game steeped in reality, the participants first agree on the reality of the situation, the causes and consequences. Bring into factors of prior health, skill and just plain luck. Determine the percentages and then come up with a quick resolution system. At that point you can know what abilities, skills, etc. are important in the whole combat experience.

I have found that percentages are the absolute best way of keeping a clear picture on reality. Even if the percentages are off a bit, at least the players know what their chances are. Three areas of reality in combat that I think are important include exposure to combat, hitting the target, injury and recovery. It would be easy to multiply the four numbers together to get a good estimate of how easy it is to stun, wound or kill an opponent. That system could be used in mass combat with lots of troops, or even to quickly run through some combat scenes when roleplaying is more important (in RPGs?).

Aftermath is a game I played many years ago and I remember it offered great attention to detail. Combat was slow and if it wasn't for the rich setting the GM created (thanks Bill) I would have been bored out of my mind.

Hmm. Questions: how important are realism and fantasy in the game you're playing? How willing are you to suspend your disbelief about what is happening? Will you embrace realism to have a speedy system? Will you sacrifice drama and fun to have a quick, realistic system? Where am I and why do my fingers hurt?

In RPGs, I prefer that my reality checks are NSF because reality really does bite.

Troy

[MatrixGamer]

Hmm. Questions: how important are realism and fantasy in the game you're playing? How willing are you to suspend your disbelief about what is happening? Will you embrace realism to have a speedy system? Will you sacrifice drama and fun to have a quick, realistic system? Where am I and why do my fingers hurt?

Troy

All of these questions go to the heart of creative agenda. Different people will answer thees questions differently. Do you want to have a "Game" you can push little people around in? Do you want a game that gives you the personal illusion of "reality" (or whatever reality you're mimicking)? Do you want a game that zeroes in on choices and consequences? We each answer for ourselves and our games progress from there. Mad kitten can usefully answer this question - it's the cat's thread - if any of the rest of us do, we're just taking a poll (which is historically not seen as very useful on this forum).

Of course I have my own answers to the questions - which I think show up in between the lines of my posts...

Chris Engle

[Madkitten]

Are you just looking for, maybe, examples of games that favor simplicity of intricate mechanics from which to draw inspiration?  Or just examples of how games that you already like can be simplified without too much damage to their believeability?

Actually, as I stated, I'm just looking for common (or not so common) situations whom people tend to make to complicated.

OK, I was clearly aiming at the wrong target then.  So you're asking what kinds of rules are unnecessary, instead of how to make a quicker system from scratch or alter an existing set of rules to make it faster.  I'm not sure how much help I'm going to be, then, but good luck.

Thanks.

My favored solution for realism vs. simplicity is conflict resolution. Instead of trying to make the rules simulate the minutiae any given reality, a system can be made less complex by determining the outcome of a situation according to situational specifics and/or randomizes and narrating the details according to logic and what is interesting but ultimately leading toward the dictated result. This way improbable results can be directly controlled, though this may eliminate certain unexpected outcomes depending on the referee or what have you. I dunno this is more my style and i don't expect anyone to be into it.

So its like normal roleplaying except that you skip the "random" element, such as the dice? Have I understood this correctly then?

With the second line I mean that it may not be the rules, but that the player gets no input into the process. Doing sums for half an hour is boring. Doing sums for half an hour where you get to manipulate some of the numbers through discussions with the GM, can be quite allot of fun.

Precisely my point. Doing sums for half an hour is boring and I think that I get a bit more out of discussing something that is relevant to the game for all parties involved than discussing the manipulation of numbers (although that might be thanks to that I study mathematics...)

This is one of those threads where a few of the underlying ideas must be agreed upon. I've had real life discussions about if things are real or real AND about what is actually reality. It seems to go back to my first sentence in that reality must be agreed upon. Also, it seems that the thread is looking at combat rules and damage. That subject always hits the hardest because it determines if the character lives or dies most of the time.

No. This thread is not about combat rules and damage. Its geared towards that since they are usually the largest part of the rules section (just look at White Wolf storyteller system, I could explain the system including character generation in a paragraph or three to experienced roleplayers, the combat system would need at least a whole page though).

Hmm. Questions: how important are realism and fantasy in the game you're playing? How willing are you to suspend your disbelief about what is happening? Will you embrace realism to have a speedy system? Will you sacrifice drama and fun to have a quick, realistic system?

Simple, realism in the form of plausibility is extremely important to me. But to narrow the scope a bit, plausible actions are those actions where they realistically would fail 95 times out of a 100 in a realistic system (or the real world) but where you can make it those 5 other times.
No, I will not embrace realism to have a speedy system. I want a bit of drama and a dash of heroism.
However, I do not think that having a speedy system actually contributes to realism. Yes, there might be a 10 chance to survive if you are shot, however if we want that system to be realistic (in the true sense of the world) we would have to take into account where it hit, whom leads us to the point of who shot and how many bullets where in the air and so on...

Where am I and why do my fingers hurt?

I'm sorry, but I cannot help you on the where I am point :-P However, cold water usually helps for fingers that hurt from too much typing.

Hmm, I am starting to realise the true scope of these questions, and that there is perhaps no general answere. The best option for me would perhaps be to create a rules set with its own direction and explore this from there?

[TroyLovesRPG]

Tony,

Great response!

On one hand I wish you luck in creating the rules set to accomplish what you want. On the other hand, I believe that the gaming companies have done an excellent job in providing rules that simulate reality in many ways.

Remember, that these RPGs are an attempt to take away the reality of the gamer's life and replace it with his or her fantastic desires to be someone else. I think many gamers want realism because their creative spark is very dim. Creativity, in my opinion, doesn't include clever ways to roll dice and move numbers around. With the advent of computer games that can simulate physics, sounds and gushing blood I wonder if true RPGs are on the decline in favor of supplements with a lot of statistics and "drop in" items.

Maybe the group of gamers with whom I participated were in a small percentile. I really never liked D&D that much, but the group I liked played that game--with passion. They were the most creative, fantasy driven, experienced roleplayers I've ever encountered. Realism was pushed to the side and it was very, very rare for someone to point out that some part of the game was unreal. The fantasy was the new reality. I had a great time and miss them.

That brings up other questions: who is your target audience? How will your rules enhance their roleplaying experience? What satisfaction will they gain when plausibility is defined? Will reality based on the real world be attractive?

I haven't thought about this stuff in years. Thank the threads!

Troy

[btrc]

Tony,
Don't know if this helps you any, but one of the things I did in a damage vs. armor system was to rate both types of protection in "dice", but you only ever rolled the difference between them. So, if a 3d6+1 bullet hit a 2d6 armor, you would roll 1d6+1 for the damage dealt, rather than rolling 3d6+1 and subtracting 2d6, or rolling 3d6+1 and subtracting some fixed armor value.

The net result is that armors which reliably stop bullets do so (like 2d+1 bullet vs. 2d+1 armor), but bullets which penetrate armor have a random variance that lets you reflect more or less vital hits. Plus, you end up rolling less dice. So, you get a plausible result and less dice rolling.

Hope this is of some use to you.

Greg Porter
BTRC guy