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In reading these examples, and then flipping through the book again, something occurs to me that hadn't before: When that first roll in a combat round is made for proactive responses, it functions as both your attack and for determining the order of attacks.

Am I smoking dope, or did is that correct?  That's certainly not how I'd interpretted it before--I was using a roll to determine order of attack, then another for the actual attack.  I certainly like this other approach, as it reduces handling time even more.  After playing Deadlands, even a combined attack/damage roll was a major streamlining accomplishment.

If that's the case, I'm going to ask to run at least a quick fight sequence ahead of our regularly scheduled 7th Sea game; I want people to see exactly how powerful this combat handling is.

Clay,

Yep, that's how it works.  It's all one roll.

Running a sample combat aint a bad idea.  When we played Sorcerer the first time we just sort of jumped into the combat, and it was initially difficult to get our heads around.  Of course, that was before the days of the nice hardbound book.

- Scott

Okay, now as for the defensive rolls:

If after rolling offensive actions, you realize that your opponent will be going first, and you elect to abort your attack for a total defense, you re-roll your pool, correct?  That's the route that makes sense (and indeed how I'd been doing things), but there've been dramatic reversals in my understanding recently, so one more reversal wouldn't be remiss.

I was fooling around with the combat system last night, and had it reinforced that the path to victory was good tactics/roleplaying, and capitalizing of previous successes.

Hi Clay,

The Sorcerer combat thread was so useful that I posted a link to it at the site. I also suggest digging back in the forums at GO (also linked at the site), especially all dialogue with Jim Henley (Supplanter).

It makes me weep that people still try to play Sorcerer by rolling initiative first and then rolling hit-defense, hit-defense, in order, like most traditional RPGs. The rules are laid out. There are examples. Upon actually reading them, no one is confused. But that "actual reading" part seems to be a stumbling block. "Huh, that makes sense," people say. "I just passed that over when I read it, I guess. Thought it was fluff."

I can only hold up my hands and look mildly accusatory. I can't help unless you read it.

Some folks (Ralph, for instance) have argued that I needed to present everything in the book with very clear, friendly, introductory examples and prose. I argue that to suit every possible individual's needs in this regard, especially for this game, that such an approach would have resulted in a tome that would be useful to no one. I also argue that the game is full of warnings and signposts that indicate where one should clear one's head of preconceptions - which are of course ignored as fluff.

Sorcerer is not rules-lite. The rules are brutally fixed and offer no "out" by suggesting that you ignore them or figure out their details "later." Resolution is not traditional resolution/order just with lower search/handling time. Character creation is not free-form. Attributes are not attributes in the usual sense; skills are not skills in the usual sense; dice and raw numerical values do not relate to another as they do in most games.

A lot of people at the Forge are having a lot of fun with Sorcerer lately. I also know that people have a lot of fun with it even without interacting with us at the Forge first - I get their enthusiastic emails. I know the game works when people read it and play it; I can't offer much help to folks who aren't actually reading the words.

Best,
Ron

After I posted I did find that link and went a little way down it, and it bears further exploration.  I may take the opportunity to map out the process flow just to make sure that I do catch everything.

I thought the combat system is one of the coolest things about Sorcerer.  Of course, Ron, since every other game out there is filled with fluff("How to roleplay"), you have a generation of gamers trained to skim.  It's really sad because Ron is insanely concise and precise at the same time.  Pay close attention and you'll find him slipping in a single sentence something that will totally change the way you play. :)

Chris

I'm going to print this thread and put it in my Sorcerer rulebook.

Don't be too hard on us Ron. The "one roll rule" requires a slight paradigm shift for some of us!

Alan.

Ron is correct, that the rules and examples do lay the system out accurately. It was after questioning the way that I'd been playing that I went through the book to confirm my suspcions. Combat in this game is very unusual, but sleekly streamlined and promoting excellent, dramatic action sequences.  

The single biggest piece of advice that I could give anybody coming new to this system is to run sample combats.  Check what you did against the rules, then run it again. Repeat until you can verify each individual step consistently. That's how I finally worked through the rules. It took probably four repetitions until I was satisfied that I had the basics (without any of the cool transfer of victories), and I saw some very impressive stuff in those four fights. I saw the underdog get trounced, I saw the underdog take the field, and twice I saw dramatic reversals where the person losing at the start went on to beat the bejesus out of his assailant.  The combination of short term and long term success in combat (lasting damage + immediate damage) is what seems to make the fights so dramatic, and I'm all for it. Much better than the traditional "whittle them down until they drop" technique of most games.