[TROS] Social Combat for TROS

[Hans]

I know that the Riddle of Steel (TROS) has its own forum now off the Forge, and have posted this there as well.  But I figured there may be enough people here who have played that game, or would just generally be interested, to warrant posting this here as well.

I have been thinking a lot about TROS's combat system, the Burning Wheel's Duel of Wits (my favourite part of that game), and the Shadow of Yesterday's Bringing Down the Pain, and a D20 variant/parody I once toyed around with (and someday will make availabe somewhere) called Royal Court. 

In response to these thoughts, I have written a system I call Social Combat for TROS, which can be found here:

http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/TROSSocialCombat

It is completely untried in real gaming, might be total crap, and certainly isn't for everyone, even if it isn't total crap.  But I have pseudo-playtested it a bit, and it seems like it could be a lot of fun.

Comments are appreciated, either here or on the discussion page.

Hans

[Hans]

It suddenly occurs to me that posting a new subsystem to an existing game may be outside the purview of this forum.  If so, then please forgive me, and ignore the above, or comment on it outside of this forum.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey Hans,

You've played TROS, right? Let's carry on with the discussion here in the Actual Play forum, and you can describe how social scenes have played out without such a system in place. And if you've tried it already, tell us about that too.

Best, Ron

[Andy Kitkowski]

Dude, seriously, after glancing at this system (and it's really rather solid), I am so tempted to turn our upcoming TROS session into a game of "Repluc Representatives of Lemuria", where there's tons of bloody skull-crushing debate and brutally violent polemic. Imagine a Conan-looking type with a mace in one hand and the Book of Regency Law of the Council of Fifteen in the other, cracking intellectual skulls, elected representatives slumped over in their chairs after having been verbally defenestrated.

It seriously looks cool, and to second Ron, I'd love to see some Actual Play about it; like, say even a small paragraph about reactions after having tried it with your group (you don't have to go into a multi-page analysis or anything, just a quick and dirty summary after having tried it out).

-Andy

[Hans]

Ok, I admit that I posted to first thoughts because I do NOT have much actual play experience with TROS (as in, just started playing, only one full session as Seneschal under my belt, and some practice with the combat system online and in practice fights).  It is more of an experiment than a response to clear perceived need.  The one session we have had so far did not have any interactions in it that would have warranted using this system even if it were available.  It is complex enough that it would only warrant being used for the really big moments.  Unlike TROS's fight system, it is NOT brutally efficient at killing people, or rather the equivalent, convincing them.  Hopefully there will be many more session, at which point I will get a chance to actually try this sytem out once or twice.

However, the system was written in response to actual play, but not really of TROS.  It was written in response to my experience playing Burning Wheel, and the pluses and minuses I saw in that game.  The Duel of Wits in that game was just about my favorite feature, because it seemed to generate the most realistic conversations I have ever heard in a role-playing game.  There was something about splitting up the conversation into a series of rolls, like combat, that brought out the best in people and focused attention on really important interactions.

But the downside to Duel of Wits was the same downside I saw to Fight; tactically, I simply could not get my mind around the rock-paper-scissors nature of the scripting three ahead principle.  I talked briefly with Luke Crane at GenCon about this, and he insists there is a large amount of tactics to Fight (and one assumes Duel of Wits), and who would know better than he?  So I assume it is my obtuseness and lack of practice that keeps me from seeing it.  But for the most part, it always felt like I was simply guessing in the absence of iinformation as to what to schedule in either Fight or Duel of Wits.  With Fight, this seemed to me an almost insurmountable obstacle to enjoying that subsystem of the game.  With Duel of Wits it was no big deal, because the advantages Duel of Wits was providing (concentrating the action on this one conversation/interaction, and making people pay attention to it) were such that the actual tactical possibilities didn't bother me.

This is where TROS's fight mechanics, I feel, are better for me and the kind of game play I enjoy.  That is because you are always deciding what to do in response to what the other person has just done, not guessing on little information.  Bad Guy throws a vertical swing with his axe to your head; you have this information, you choose what seems like the best response given your character's statistics, current condition, etc.  It flows from one maneuver to the next.  It seems natural.

So I created this system to try to achieve the conversations and interactions that Duel of Wits produces, but with the flowing tactical choices of TROS's fight mechanics.  One key difference I want to mention with this system that because the "damage" of a particular social maneuver occurs immediately after that maneuver, the social combat always ends at that moment.  In Duel of Wits, what will often happen is I say something, you say something, then we see who was right or wrong.  In this system, I say something, and we see if it convinces you.  If not, you say something, and we see if that convinces me.  And so on.  Personally, I like this because it seems like a natural way for a conversation to flow. 

Whether I have succeeded in my goal in any way will not be know until I am able to get my players (or someone else's) interested in playtesting it.  Off the top of my head, I think it is more mechanistic than Duel of Wits, and the greater involvement of dice and rules may be too much to allow for any interaction to smoothly take place; it may be chopped up too much. 

Anyway, if anyone ever does use it, please let me know, and I will post my results if I do as well.