Playing The Riddle of Steel (a little)

[Ron Edwards]

Hey there,

As I said in this thread, I managed to get in some brief Riddle of Steel play last week. It wasn't much, just a few neat encounters and a quick, out-of-context combat.

Some Forge members are probably going to think I've gone 'round the bend, or at the very least am allowing my love for real pulp sword-and-sorcery to blind me. I mean, we are talking about a game in which a typical combat sequence looks like:
- announce stance
- determine simultaneously who's attacking and who's defending
- opponents split dice pools into offense and defense
- opponents announce target zone, as well as specific maneuvers and further manipulate dice pools to suit the maneuvers (e.g. lose one die to gain extra damage for your Cut)
- attacker rolls attack dice; defender rolls defense dice; each checks internal success for each roll (vs. target number), then actual success is determined by the difference in the two internal values
- subtract the opponent's Toughness and the armor of the target zone from the single value derived above
- take the new value to the tables ... and there's a table for every target zone cross-ref'd with every weapon type (puncture/bash/etc)
- roll 1d6 to determine actual spot of the injury within the stated target zone; modify if you used Accuracy or the Counter maneuver
- the result on the table tells you Blood Loss (add it to existing Blood Loss, roll Endurance vs.the total or faint), Shock (which is a one-round penalty to your dice pools and may entail some math with your Willpower), and Pain (which is an ongoing penalty to your dice pools and may entail some math with your Willpower), and Knockdown (in which you roll to see whether you fall)
- if the defender is not maimed or incapacitated, he may now attack and the attacker must defend

The usual result is being maimed and falling to the ground, and bleeding-out is the typical Plan B. This is a fine thing regarding combat realism, and I will go so far as to say that the game captures "being in a fight" better than any game I have ever played. Its sequential mechanics, usually something I avoid like the plague, are much more fun than their closest relatives, RuneQuest and Rolemaster. (I still plump for Swashbuckler as the finest for stunning fight choreography embedded in the mechanics; Riddle tends to rely on "common sense" to get this effect.)

But I can also see that people will be justifiably concerned about two phenomena: (1) tactics regarding maneuvers becoming, themselves, the point of play in a strategic sense, and (2) the straightforward disjunct between the facts that fights in reality kill people regardless of whose "side" they're on, whereas fights in stories are heavily biased in favor of the stories' protagonists.

In other words, why do I grip my Aquilonian broadsword, scowl menacingly, and pronounce The Riddle of Steel to be a Narrativist game?

Because in many ways, the whole game is a cruel trap. It's the opposite of de-protagonizing; if you go in without committing to your character as a protagonist, the combat system will kill you. If you don't ramp up those Spiritual Attributes via role-playing (and moral choices), then you ain't gonna have the dice to survive combat. In this sense, The Riddle of Steel is very much like Sorcerer, in terms of players being surprised at how hard Sorcerer's demon-summoning is - if you're not using both circumstantial and metagame bonuses, it's probably not going to work, and your Humanity losses while you try will wax your character. Jake referred to this as the "natural selection" effect regarding ROS, and I think he's got a point. Planning to power-game? You'll die - unless you convert that competitiveness into a motor for your Narrativist priority. Planning to get into the realism? You'll die - unless you convert that Exploration into a motor for your Narrativist priority.

I have a lot, lot, lot to say about the history of this ambition in role-playing design, particularly in terms of the latter issue (Sim/Narr). The first game to try it was RuneQuest. Realism, so-called, was supposed to be the foundation for heroic, mythic tale-creation. Without metagame mechanics or any other mechanisms regarding protagonism, the Sim took over, and RuneQuest became, essentially, a wargame at the individual level that was based largely on Glorantha fandom (this trend is still a very strong gaming-subculture in Britain). The BRP (RuneQuest) system is right up there with AD&D and Champions in terms of its influence, and until just now, no game has attempted to "power Narrativism with Simulationist combat" from the ground up again; they just imitate RuneQuest and go right down the same road.

The alternative, as illustrated for just about every Narrativist game, is to move combat mechanics very far into the metagame realm: Swashbuckler, Sorcerer, Castle Falkenstein, The Dying Earth, Zero, Orkworld, Hero Wars, and (my God) The Pool take that road to various distances, and it works.

The Riddle of Steel is like a guy waving his hand in the back of the room -"Scuse me, scuse me, what about that first road? I'm not ready to jettison that idea yet." It's as if someone stepped into The Chaosium in 1977, and said, "Hey, you know, if you don't put some kind of player-modulated personality mechanic in there, this game is going to be all about killing monsters and collecting Clacks." This didn't happen in 1977, and that's why RuneQuest was all about those things (and avidly speculating about Gloranthan details). But it's happened now ...

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Damn, that sounds amazing.  I'm definitely going to have to bump my deep read of RoS up in the channel, because I didn't pick up on anythis on an initial quick read.  On an initial read it looked pretty much like Rune Quest with a cool dice pool mechanic to me, so I had demoted it down my reading pile.

Is that possibly because the Narrativist engine you're seeing is buried in all the sim text and you only picked it up because you were looking for it and are naturally focused on using such mechanics.

In other words, I guess, what I'm indirectly asking is whether or not this story driving element is front and center enough to be picked up by the majority of players, or will most players just see the combat, decide they die way too quick, and never realize the potential you spotted?  It certainly wasn't featured strongly enough for me to notice it on my initial once over.

If it is somewhat buried, than Jake should definitely note that as something to take care of in an eventual second edition, because what you describe sounds down right exciting.

[Jake Norwood]

Taking note!!!!

Ron--you captured exactly what I was trying to do!

Valamir--you captured exactly what I need to do!

Okay, okay...so I'm excited. Generally the phenomenon that Ron mentioned comes out very strongly in play over more than one game, but you're right (shameful to admit) that it isn't talked up enough in the text, and so those that never play it rarely see it. It's been our experience at conventions and demos that we always create about 90% + fanatics from those in attendance, and this is why.

So, thanks you guys. Ron, for being perceptive and putting into words what I didn't, and Valamir, for pointing that out.

Cool...

Jake Norwood
Driftwood Publishing

[Ron Edwards]

Hey Ralph,

It depends on perspective to some extent, certainly. I'm pretty sure that it's front-and-center, given that a character's "philosophy" is cited as the first and most important element of design. On the other hand, bitter experience has taught me that many players blaze right past that (blah blah blah, they read). I also think that all the Spiritual Attribute text is explicit about how important they are, and clearly the improvement mechanics will reinforce them in a big way.

However, to my way of thinking, what the book needs desperately are examples, examples, examples of the central role of these attributes, especially regarding surviving combat.

It's a tricky problem. I think to a large extent, the game advertisement relies on the immediacy, gore, and uncompromising nature of the combat as a selling point. "This game is cool! You get to gut your opponent! Real-time combat!" (All of which is 100% true if you're using D&D and Rolemaster for comparison; veterans of Hero Wars or Swashbuckler will probably shrug, 'cause we get gore and real-time combat too.) Now, this is a great selling point at the superficial level. People like that stuff, and I specifically include female players, several of whom saw the game book last week and immediately wanted to play a severer, a slicer, a gutter, and a cruncher, all at the same time. My only fear is that (as with your experience) that advertising might be too effective and fail to grab those people who are the most pre-game prepped to grasp the real, underlying power of the game.

Jake, what do you think? I understand that the game is selling very well, direct, and that's good. Do you think you might be missing a key target-audience though?

Best,
Ron

[Jake Norwood]

Jake, what do you think? I understand that the game is selling very well, direct, and that's good. Do you think you might be missing a key target-audience though?

Very possibly. The issue is one of practicality--how do you advirtise such a thing short of word-of-mouth (which is the only source of advirtisement to repeatedly bring in sales for us here)? The RPG.net thread has boon wonderful for us, quadrupling sales or some such thing, but it has also created a number of folks that feel that the mechanic is too complicated (which it really isn't...it's just different for most people) because we're constantly discussing mechanics on the thread, mostly with people that have never seen the game, and so peole think that the rules aren't clear, etc...

In other words, how do you advirtise something like the Spiritual Attribute system without creating a whole counter-reaction, or in the face of one? How do you advirtise it at all?

Open to suggestions, and ready to talk!

Jake

[Valamir]

You're bitter experience is probably right on Ron.  I've been reading game books so long now that alot of the chunky text gets blown over the same way as I'd skip over the "how to read dice" and "whats an RPG" sections.  "blah blah blah".

I've been a systems monkey from day one and a long time arguer that the right rules make the game better, so when I quick read a rule book I'm very much in "show me the money" mode.

i.e. "yeah I see, a bunch of text telling me how stuff is supposed to work, where the heck are the actual mechanics so I can tell what will *actually* happen"

So you're probably right.  They probably were featured in exactly the sections I don't bother reading closely in my first quick impressions once over.

But now I'm excited.  My first suspicion was that Ron (perhaps blinded by his love for S&S) was seeing what he wanted to see, and over estimating the power of the Spiritual Traits...;-)   But, Jake, hearing you confirm that that is, in fact, how the game was designed (and is not merely a mechanical coincidence that a dedicated Narrativist can exploit) has me eager to read more.

[Valamir]

Jake, I'd start with something akin to the Real Time Combat and Riddle of Steel essay.  Between the two of those they capture the essence of the combat focus.  I think what you need is an essay that captures the essence of how these spiritual traits work and feature that just as prominently.

[Jake Norwood]

The fact is that before a month ago I never cared a bit for "narrativist" or "sim" or any other game-theory issue. Someone asked me if I was into that stuff once, when I was in the early stages of putting TROS together, and I said "beats the hell out of me...I'm just writing the game that I always wanted but never had." My games, no matter what the system, have always placed key importance on the elements that are highlighted in the Spiritual Attributes section...we had that worked out before we had dice pools and damage tables and maneuvers. I remember playing Greg Stafford's excellent Pendragon, and thinking, "damn--here's a game that actually motivates players to play a certain kind of character, with passions an morals and weaknesses, and it's all worked into the mechanic."

It changed the way I looked at RPGs for good.

The combat came from trying to play a swordsman in a bijillion campaigns in a bijillion systems and always feeling that I was either too abstract (D&D), too chaotic and thrash-and-bash (Warhammer FRPG), or too long-winded (White Wolf combat). I was a practicing martial artist, and felt that the closest thing available to real combat was GURPS, maybe, but even that reeked of SCA-influence and took too darn long...

So I put this thing together.

I get the whole "narrativist" and "sim" thing now, and I guess Ron is right (he really seems to know his stuff), but I'd just say that I've never gotten into a character more than the one I'm playing now, despite a weak GM (hope he doesn't read that...he's new), and I'm having more fun gaming than I have in years.

Jake

[Jake Norwood]

Jake, I'd start with something akin to the Real Time Combat and Riddle of Steel essay.  Between the two of those they capture the essence of the combat focus.  I think what you need is an essay that captures the essence of how these spiritual traits work and feature that just as prominently.

You're referring to in-game text, or as a plug?

[Ron Edwards]

Jake,

I just browsed the site again, and I suggest taking a look at the "What is The Riddle of Steel" section. It has a colorful intro (which unfortunately will be read by many as color text with no content). That intro mentions the combat system in some detail. It has a pure combat section. And it has a FAQ, in which the first question is about the combat. See? The message is, "fight, fight, dice, dice, slay, slay."

I think that a fourth section to that section, called, "What's the point" or something like that, would be a perfect place for a Spiritual Attributes discussion, exactly as you described to me verbally at GAMA. You have the words, but they need to be on a page. Also, include a reference to the same issues in the FAQ section, just as you do with combat.

Those are my thoughts. Anyone else?

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

I was thinking on the web site, pretty much exactly how Ron described above.

For whatever 2nd Ed plans you have, i'd make sure to incorporate those sentiments repeatedly and often throughout the text.  As is repeated often around here, if 80% of the game rules is about combat, than combat is what the game is going to be about in play.  So I'd work to make sure the story driving elements of the Spiritual Traits et.al. gets just as much time and space in the text as the combat.

You mentioned Pendragon, (my all time favorite RPG although the skill mechanics are somewhat stupid), if that was your inspiration you can't be very wrong :-)

[Jake Norwood]

What an active little discussion we have going here (hey, I just finished my last final...life is good).

The web site idea is excellent, and it's definitely the next course of action. I agree about the "80%" comment, though I'd like to point out that combat only occupies 39 pages out of 266 (if you include all of the maneuver and proficiency rules in the skill chapter)...that's about 15%. If you add damage tables and weapons and all those extras in the appendix it kicks it up to 66 pages, or about 25% of the book. Compare that to 42 pages of magic, 50 pages of World and Setting, 22 pages of skills and abilities not related to magic...so it isn't as large as some think, but it is true that 80% of the advirtising has gone to the combat, which is probably where this perception is coming from (go figure).

As for "2nd edition," there's a lot that we want to do, but the question is, "when is it too early to do 2nd ed?" Or should I just do one now and call it revised?

Jake

[Bankuei]

If you're winning converts from the playtests and folks are picking it up, I'd wait until you 1) get back more responses, and 2) get your forum/community stuff up on the ROS site before doing a revised or 2nd edition.  You may find that you want to focus more on certain aspects or backgrounds, or provide certain types of examples.

I'd definitely like to see a little more focus on the actual concept of the Riddle of Steel, the warrior enlightenment that is kinda borderline hinted at in the book.  

Chris :)

[Anonymous]

Hey Ron,

The usual result is being maimed and falling to the ground, and bleeding-out is the typical Plan B....in many ways, the whole game is a cruel trap. It's the opposite of de-protagonizing; if you go in without committing to your character as a protagonist, the combat system will kill you.

I would bet my girlfriend that I know exactly how a friend of mine would respond to exposure to Riddle of Steel. This is a guy who loves Mayfair's MEGS system, and GURPS, and the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms settings, a guy who gave up gaming after playing in an Everway scenario I ran last year, and a Theatrix scenario that Tom ran. "Paul, you know what I think about games with not enough rules," he said to me subsequently when I was trying to get him interested in a game of Prince Valiant.

Attracted by the crunchiness and realism of Riddle of Steel, he'd make an axe-wielding barbarian character. He'd get this guy disembowled and killed wading into a fight with an adolescent cutpurse or something, and then he'd deliver a "This game sucks!" verdict.

And if for some reason he couldn't pull himself away from an interest in the game's color, he'd start in on modifying the game, probably by somehow boosting the combat effectiveness of starting characters. He would never ever notice or accept the Spiritual Attributes as a valid and legitimate linchpin for combat effectiveness across all character types. He doesn't want a premisey interpretation of combat. He wants combat success embedded in an elaborate illusion of realism.

I can't help but think he's fairly typical of gamers who'll be most drawn to Riddle of Steel at first blush. Can you really deliver premisey combat to these guys? When it comes down to "natural selection," I can't help but think the gamer survives and the game as designed doesn't.

Paul

[Paul Czege]

That was weird. The forum logged me out and accepted my post as "Guest". Is that a feature of the new version of the phpbb engine?

Paul