A New System for Martial Arts Fighting

[Hereward The Wake]

Burning wheel has good ideas on the question of didtance between the fighters and effective ranges for the different attacks.
TROS has a differnt view of the who goes when thing.

I like aspects of the Feng SHui systems of who goes when.

JW

[Noclue]

I just read through Burning Wheel and I really like the way it handles the optimal range mechanic. I would generally break out the hex paper and miniatures and try to figure out how far away everyone is from each other. Burning Wheel doesn't go this route. Instead, it keeps distance abstracted, you roll position tests versus your oponents to see who is in optimal range and go from there. Its a pretty cool method that I can't wait to see in combat.

I bought TROS a month ago, but have yet to receive it in the mail. Every day I run to the mailbox to see if the book has arrived only to have my hopes dashed. I am very excited to see how they handle combat in general.

[Hereward The Wake]

Yeah I like aspects to the distance thing in BW, I know from RL historical combat that didstance isn't something that you can easily keep track of in games terms so their version does a good job of it.

I like aspects of the Feng Shui timing system as its more about when you can do something and how much you can do, there fore you have to think about how complicated your actions are as if they aren't successfull its going to be longer before you can do something again. again soemthing that translate well in to apsects of RL combat.

JW

[AJ_Flowers]

I have to admit, my "baby" in this mechanic isn't so much the range stuff, which I could redo or toss, as the fact that I'd rather see the defender than the attacker be the one in the active (ie, rolling) position in the system.  It turns combat on its head.

I'll take a look at Burning Wheel and see how it does it, since I'm always in favor of elegant systems.  One problem I had with an earlier draft of my idea is that the modifiers started to stack up too quickly, which goes against the element of having something that flows.

[Valamir]

If you set the "attack value" to the attackers skill in the maneuver you can then use all of the different martial arts "moves" to create various trade offs between range and bonuses.

You could invent a bazillion moves or you could just make categories...like Fast Punch, Strong Punch, Fierce Punch, where Fierce Punch has a big bonus but is useable at only a single range, while Fast Punch has a penalty but is useable at several ranges.

[Hereward The Wake]

Yes whatever one does it seems to end up with things stacking up and loosing the flow of the action.

While your system is interesting I think you will just find that by inverting the normal roles, ie defender being active, you are still going to have the same problems as any other system just the other way round.
I don't see how that one can't get around the modifier problem without a radically different system to create a mechanic that doesn't need them.

You might want to look at a simple system which sounds very similar to what you are diescribing. Its designed for 3Musketeers type duel but makes use of the idea that the attack succeeds but the defender rolls to see if THEY prevent the action from taking its full toll.

I've been trying to get you the link but not working. It was a free rules set. You can try www.eurekamin.co.au and contact them or search there.

JW

[Hereward The Wake]

Valamir your suggestions are very similar to what I have come up with for my weapons based system, with mine currently intergrating with the Timimng system, bigger moves take up more time and there foreleaving you less time to something else.

As you say if the Attackers current skill value(which could be modified by their current health stamina etc)  was modified by the attack value of the maneuver you could then have the "fixed" attack number, against which the defender would be active against as AJ wants?

The enjoyable bit then a the attacker would be choosing the maneuver that would give them the best oppertunities based up their current fatigue, wahtever, level?

JW

[John Hyland]

What if the range determined the attacks available, but you got a penalty for attacking at a closer than "optimal" range.  So, a rifle might have a range of 6, but if you attacked at range 4, you'd get a -2.  That way, grappling will work better than a high kick or a bo staff when you're right up next to each other, but the math is still pretty simple.

[Hereward The Wake]

But then aren't you back to having to determine a what distance you are at and who gets to decide the distance between two fighters?
JW

[Noclue]

Burning Wheel uses a positioning test to determine who decides starting distance. The winner can place themselves at optimal range for their attack. Their opponent then needs to attack from outside optimal range or close the distance with maneuvers. I should note that BW has different mechanics for ranged combat and melee, but the concept is pretty similar in both for positionings.

The penalty for being outside optimal range seems to work well. Of course, a rifle would be at optimal range over a broad field of fire and only suffer meaning ful penalties at the extremes.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey guys,

One of the problems with combat system design is its vulnerability to "hey! this too!" thinking. Let's get back to Amanda's straightforward idea, because it's the new thing, the idea in this thread. Stuff like distance, order of action, and many other details are concerns in all combat systems, in one way or another, and we don't have to hash them all out and over again.

Straightforwardly: in applying this idea to a combat procedure in an RPG, there is no missing. One does not roll to hit, or throw coins, or draw cards. One simply hits. So! How is combat then conducted? As a series of defenses. It strikes me that the system might distinguish between a skillful defensive act, which seems (to the observer) to have occurred even before the attack; a desperate and reactive defensive act, which the attack probably interrupts whatever the person was doing and is therefore successful even if it doesn't land; and being blindsided or simply not reactive enough.

See what I mean? It doesn't have anything to do with the nature of the attacks; we start by assuming that attacks are (a) successful and (b) damaging. So lists of attack options and whatnot, as you'd see in a video game or dozens of RPGs, are not to the point at all.

With all that laid out and in mind, now we can think about ordering just a bit. It would have to be a matter of disposing of those who simply got out-timed (smack!), of those who were forced to defend in some reactive or disadvantaged way, and of those who defended handily, probably simply by not being there anymore. In what order might that be done? I have some ideas about that, but Amanda, what do you think?

Also, Amanda, I know this is a First Thoughts topic and that you might not have taken the notion much further, but now that it might have become more solid to you through posting, what sort of game might you like to see this in, or as a key part of? "My Life at the Dojo" is possible, but perhaps a bit pedestrian if it's just about sparring matches. Especially given our discussions at Forge Midwest, what sort of context do you think would be both fun and relevant for skilled, potentially deadly personal combat?

Best, Ron

[contracycle]

I'd like to offer up my "sword of damocles" mechanic for inspection.  It is an attempt to model an exchange in one roll, which thus sort of eliminates the to-hit roll.  Anyway the idea is as follows:

Rule:
Any failure on a combat action results in the sword [of damocles] falling on the acting character.

This obviates the need to determine or resolve blow by blow type combat.  I think it should also eliminate quite a lot of weapon modifier type stuff.

It seems to me this would work best associated with a sort of escalating bidding device.  So a sample resolution model would be something like this:

- players propose actions with a difficulty number
- they then roll some dice trying to get higher than this difficulty
- difficulties accumulate through multiple actions by both parties

So if Joe and Bob are fighting by means of a system in which they each have, say, 2d6 to roll, it might be something like:

Joe proposes a 4-point difficulty opening thrust, rolls, gets more than 4, stays alive.

Bob proposes a difficulty 2 beat, total difficulty is now 6, rolls more than 6, stays alive

Joe proposes a 4 point feint-and-lunge, difficulty is 10, rolls below 10, dies.

Original thread over here http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=13242.0 for a more developed discussion.

[Noclue]

I would suggest a mechanic that captures the shifting momentum of combat. Ron suggested defenses might be classified as skillful successes, desperate successes, and failures. Using this model, I would suggest a mechanic that would allow the successful defense to modify the next action. So if I pull off a skillful defense, the amount by which I was successful could be used to decrease my oponents ability to defend against my attack. If I successfully but desperately defend, my successes actually improve the oponent's chance to defend (essentially, I had to throw a lot of energy into the defense that my oponent can then use). In a truly desperate defense it might negate my next attack completely, allowing the oponent multiple attacks, causing more and more desperate defenses.

[contracycle]

Alright, heres a device with more movement and range.

Seeing as all literal representations of range to date have failed IMO, I'm going to resort to abstraction.  Also to give movement some bite I'm going to keep some elements of a dojo setting, in order to erstablish another dynamic: defend or give ground.

So we have two physical displays.  The first is the mat map, which for arguments sake we can imagine as a 3x3 grid.  A token representing "the fight" is placed in the central square at the start of the game.

The range between the combatants is not represented on the mat map; it is represented instead on a slider which carries "some numbers" from zero up.  These are range bands, and a token is placed on the slider at the start of the bout to display the relationship between them, as they both stand in the central square of the mat map.

So thats the setup.  Assuming inititiative is determined by lot or inspection of entrails, whatever, the intended sequence of action would look something like this.  The Attacker, on their turn, adjusts the Range slider by one or more bands; they do so becuase they have attacks listed that are available only at certain range bands, or gain bonuses according to bands.  Different styles can have different amountsa of attacks etc. differently distributed among the range bands.

So our attacker has determined the current range, and anounces an attack.  The defender must now "fight or fall back"; that is, either roll off for an attempt at defending the attack, or concede, by falling back and representing this by moving the fight location token that appears on the mat map.

This makes for a nice symmetry in which the attacker has their finger resting speculatively on the range slider, and the defender has theirs resting on the fight location token, ready to fall back.  That sounds like a good level of basic tension between them.  However, I'm also assuming that the defender can be compelled to fall back out of the ring, that is, off an edge of the mat map, and thereby lose a half point.

This need not be kept as a literal device permanently; just as in reallife, the restricted space is an abstraction of complex environments.  You could conceivably teach players fiorst to use tyhe mat mapo, and then fight combats on differently or uniquely shaped maps.  In fact, considering that both combatants arre represented by a single token, you could conceivably stick this on any grid map.

Anyway thats an outline of something making more use of space, movement, and the dojo concept.  Stuff that would still need to be determined includes: how your RNG works for the blocks, some detail on what kind of choices are available to someone falling back, and some kind of initiative system.

[contracycle]

I find it a real pity this query has not garnered more responses.  It's an interesting bone to chew on and a recurrent problem in RPG design.  Ron's proposal was also interesting and I am sorry we have not seen any attempts at an implementation.

Seems to me its a pretty sad day when such an interesting question simply falls off the front page.