A new method for combat?

[Sovem]

AJ's post of several weeks ago about a new system for martial arts has really got me thinking about alternative ways to run combat. Her suggestion was that instead of rolling to hit, one should only roll to defend, as hitting in close combat is pretty much assured for any competent fighter.

I got to thinking about that and it inspired me with the following idea:

First of all, instead of a system of initiative, every round of combat would only be a few seconds long and everyone's actions take place at the same time. Instead of rolling for attack or defense, characters locked in combat would both roll their combat skill, declaring what their goal was. Whoever rolled higher wins that round of combat, realizing their goal.

That's the simplest, bare bones version. I forsee there being much more customization. For instance, I would imagine that Players have a list of Actions they can take, which can modify their roll or create different effects. A simple attack would be an action, as would a movement. A player might chose to execute a feint, however, for her action; meaning that she still rolls her combat skill, but does no damage if she wins, instead setting up a bonus for herself to attack next round. A person might chose to take their move action for the round, placing them out of range of their opponent's hand to hand attack... but also moving out of range of their own ability to strike, as well.

Combat in this system would seem to me to be much more visceral and fast paced; a real head to head kind of fight. If two people ganged up on the same target, that target would only be rolling to attack one of those characters, meaning they get no defense (other than armor) against the other attack. Alternatively, they could chose to have their roll apply against both as a Full Defense, but they'd do no damage if they won the contest.



What do y'all think? Does this system sound realistic? Do-able? Been done?

Thanks,
John

[Justin Nichol - BFG]

Sounds like an interesting idea. I foresee one major problem, and maybe this is only my own line of thinking but I've noticed that in roleplaying games, people tend to go with what works to win a contest. In other words, if the Bastard Sword is the best weapon in the game, and slashing it vanilla over and over gives them the best chance of winning, few people will stray from grabbing a bastard sword and slashing. This relates to your system in that if two contestants were both trying to roll a contest to see whose action succeeded, there would need to be some variable difficulty. If both are standing and one guy wants to punch the other to the body, not particularly difficult, and the other would like to get the other person in a submission hold, significantly more difficult. It would have to be more difficult for them to aheieve in the contest. That said, if there is a variable difficulty, I could easily foresee people consistently doing the more efficient actions in the game and not really trying things that are more cinematic or interesting because if they choke down the higher difficulty actions, they're more likely to get pummeled. This may be in some respects more realistic, but it doesn't necessarily simulate the sort of combat I think you are trying for.

Other than that I like the idea, if you could somehow solve that problem, perhaps through allowing for a relatively balanced and detailed chain of events that a person can go through to get to the cooler effects, I'm not sure. Keep at it and good luck.

[Callan S.]

Why are they fighting? What are they fighting over?

[hix]

Hey John,

Would you like to give us a 'script' for how you see a couple of rounds of fighting going using this system? Just make something up - say three gladiators fighting in an arena.

I think that'd help me see what's going on here.

[Noclue]

First of all, instead of a system of initiative, every round of combat would only be a few seconds long and everyone's actions take place at the same time. Instead of rolling for attack or defense, characters locked in combat would both roll their combat skill, declaring what their goal was. Whoever rolled higher wins that round of combat, realizing their goal.

This part sounded like something that might be interesting and new. The rest of the post took the edge off it.

[J. Scott Timmerman]

First of all, instead of a system of initiative, every round of combat would only be a few seconds long and everyone's actions take place at the same time. Instead of rolling for attack or defense, characters locked in combat would both roll their combat skill, declaring what their goal was. Whoever rolled higher wins that round of combat, realizing their goal.

This part sounded like something that might be interesting and new. The rest of the post took the edge off it.

I'd have to agree.  In reality, actions do occur simultaneously.  When you think about martial arts systems, it's really hard to smoothly emulate something that fast-paced without being bogged down.  I tend to the abstract.

Even when being abstract, it's relatively simple to build in the various advantages and disadvantages to, say, a punch in the solar plexus, versus grappling an opponent, versus using a broadsword.  There may be a different amount of difficulty in execution, as an earlier poster said, but there is also a differing amount of payoff, so that players would not always choose the same option, especially if the situation or the opponents are well varied.

In my system, I do pretty much the same thing as you mentioned, except that instead of rounds being a few seconds, rounds are abstracted to be however long they need to be to complete that action that succeeded; be it a split second or a few minutes.

As far as skill being irrelevant in hitting; I'd have to disagree.  Especially in the case of two experienced fighters, an attacker's skill is very important in determining whether (s)he is able to hit a defensive opponent at all.  In the martial arts, there's often a thin line between a feint and a stinger.  Take the flow of a sparring match, for instance.  Sometimes a feint comes so instinctively that it might not even be considered a conscious decision to feint on the part of the attacker.

Because of this, and because a feint can often be a very minute amount of time, I tend to abstract issues like that into the attack itself.  There are still plenty of other tactical decisions that martial arts fighters can make in a battle, and feints can simply be thought of as descriptive goodness.

[brainwipe]

I think some more meat needs to be added here as I don't see how difficulty is taken into account.
If I had three people in a fight and each state what they're going to do:

Player #1. Punch player #2.
Player #2. Kick player #3.
Player #3. Be a whirling bundle of legs and arms and hit both the other players with massive boots to the head!

They all roll initiative and the one with the highest value wins. How will you make up for the fact that Player #3 is attempting something very difficult?

[Sovem]

Well, when I talked about the different Actions applying different modifiers or effects, I was talking about that variable difficulty y'all are refering to. So, while a simple attack with a weapon is nothing more than a strait roll of your skill, that's just the most basic type of action. Say your fighting against a guy who's obviously better than you, in that he keeps winning the contest of skill and you can't get a hit in edgewise. You might chose to take a Berserk Attack option, which would cause your roll to be considered lower for purposes of defense, but cause it to be considered higher for purposes of attack--you would both end up hitting each other at the same time, but who cares, because he was probably going to hit you anyway, right?

Let's see if I can answer some more specific questions...

Brainwipe: First of all, in the system I'm proposing, there would be no roll of initiative. All their actions would occur simultaneously. Also, unless there was some sort of sneak attack involved, all three would know at the beginning of the round that they're within striking distance of the other two, and would probably opt for something more defensive until a clear window of opportunity opened up. But, assuming they're all badasses and decide to go for it anyway, knowing that if they attack one the other could get a free shot at them, Players 1 & 2 would just roll their attacks as normal. Player 1 would get his attack off successfully, damaging #2. #3 would obviously be some sort of advanced fighter with some sort of feat or specialty that lets him attack more than one person at a time, per your description. In which case, I don't know what his defense would be--that's obviously advanced mechanics, and I'm just focusing on bare bones. But, making up something on the spot... say, a Whirling Dervish skill that lets you attack anyone within range, but forfits your defense. That would mean that Player 2 also hits. Player 3 must now compare his roll against Player 2's, who still gets his defense. If he rolled higher, he hits him, if not, he doesn't. Nevertheless, he will at least hit Player 1, who attacked #2 and left himself open.


VoidDragon: I think I answered your question already? There will definately be bonuses/penalties/different effects for different kinds of attacks. As for making feints part of the description, that's certainly a fine idea. In my system, though, I like the idea of making a "social attack" for a feint; success means you get a bonus next round to a normal attack.


Noclue: Your first sentence sounded like it was going to be helpful, but the second kinda took the edge off it. Mind elaborating?


Hix: was brainwipe's example enough, or did you want more?

Callan: because they can't solve their differences through diplomacy.

Justin: Isn't that the problem with any game--players find what their character does best and just does that over and over? By having different Actions characters can take, I was actually hoping of avoiding that rut of "I swing my sword. I swing my sword. I swing my sword..."

[Aaron Blain]

The point I made in Callan's thread applies here: don't take DnD as an example. DnD is static. "Vanilla Swipe" is always best.

Ever play Soul Calibur? It works like this :

P1 : I charge!
P2 : I thrust! That's the best answer!
P1 : I start dodging side to side! Your thrust can't hit me!
P2 : I swipe horizontally! That's the best answer now!

If the terms of combat are constantly changing, it's worth paying attention, unlike DnD or every computerized fantasy rpg. You could even (easily), make a system where the constantly-changing "best answer" is not at all obvious, and is in fact totally disputable.

If the combat actions are not closely defined (i.e. a list of maneuvers that can only vary in Color), you have to give someone the authority to assign bonuses and penalties. It doesn't have to be the same person all the time.

[Justin Nichol - BFG]

Well I was merely suggesting, and this is because I happen to be trying to create a comabt system that works better than mainstream games systems myself, that perhaps you could provide some rules based impotus for actions that are cool.

But here's something I'm confused on. Ok so you attack, but you hit automatically. So like we were saying, how is there variable difficulty? So the tradeoff is that you may lose defense or void some advantage, but it's still no more difficult to flick a person than to do a spinning heel kick. Obviously this could be remedied by making difficult maneuvers easier to defend against, but there you run even more into the problem of people using the same attacks again and again, because the cool attacks are so easy to defend against.

It's a matter of design goals. If you make a system where punching over and over wins the fight, but doing a Crescent kick gets you knocked on your ass, you can't blame people for punching. They are not at fault for doing what will allow them to succeed at a task. I'm not saying that is how your system will invariably turn out, but because you have a good idea, I think you should keep in mind the danger of having a kickass combat system that people barely use for more than a bit of sport when they're ahead.

[J. Scott Timmerman]

I think I answered your question already? There will definately be bonuses/penalties/different effects for different kinds of attacks. As for making feints part of the description, that's certainly a fine idea. In my system, though, I like the idea of making a "social attack" for a feint; success means you get a bonus next round to a normal attack.

My comment about variation in attacks was actually in response to Justin's critique.  I was actually defending your idea, Sovem.

As far as feints go, if you like that idea, go with it.  Yes, a feint is a social action, in that the feinter is trying to influence another character's perceptions of the situation.  I was simply arguing that there is skill involved in hitting, and feinting is part of that skill.  My perception of feinting just happens to be that feints happen a lot more quickly than many combat systems seem to handle them, but that keeping track of rounds in tiny split-second bits can really bog down a game.

-Jason T.

[Noclue]

As far as skill being irrelevant in hitting; I'd have to disagree.  Especially in the case of two experienced fighters, an attacker's skill is very important in determining whether (s)he is able to hit a defensive opponent at all.  In the martial arts, there's often a thin line between a feint and a stinger.  Take the flow of a sparring match, for instance.  Sometimes a feint comes so instinctively that it might not even be considered a conscious decision to feint on the part of the attacker.

My understanding of the original post was that an attack will always hit, unless the defender defends. So, you can basically always hit someone who stands still and does not put up a guard. The reason you need skill in the attack is because of the defenders skill at defending.

Of course, the logic works in reverse. You can always defend against an attacker who is not attacking. But, that's a minor quibble.

The logic does not work so good at distance. You can not always hit someone with an arrow who is not defending. Sometimes you just miss. Distance magnifies the effects of small errors from poor spatial judgement, tremors, wind sheer, etc.

[Callan S.]

Callan: because they can't solve their differences through diplomacy.

And how does combat resolve what diplomacy couldn't?

I'm trying to help - any elaboration of system here should involve resolving what diplomacy couldn't. Too often in RPG, elaboration of system just tacks on extra moves like fuzzy dice or go fast stripes added on a car, when really you want to add a super charger to the engine!

[Justin Nichol - BFG]

Callan: because they can't solve their differences through diplomacy.

And how does combat resolve what diplomacy couldn't?

I'm trying to help - any elaboration of system here should involve resolving what diplomacy couldn't. Too often in RPG, elaboration of system just tacks on extra moves like fuzzy dice or go fast stripes added on a car, when really you want to add a super charger to the engine!

Callan, it seems like you're saying something but I have absolutely no idea what exactly it is. This isn't an insult, but could you try to be a little less arcane in your responses. What exactly does it matter the intentions behind the combat. That's left up to the players etc. The point is not why or when combat will happen, but that it has and a system should be in place to accomodate the outcome, unless I'm simply too befuddled to understand what you're saying.

[Sovem]

My understanding of the original post was that an attack will always hit, unless the defender defends. So, you can basically always hit someone who stands still and does not put up a guard. The reason you need skill in the attack is because of the defenders skill at defending.

Precisely.

The logic does not work so good at distance. You can not always hit someone with an arrow who is not defending. Sometimes you just miss. Distance magnifies the effects of small errors from poor spatial judgement, tremors, wind sheer, etc.

Yes, that is true. Right now, though, I just wanted to focus on hand to hand stuff. I'll deal with ranged combat later; that's its own can of worms.


Justin & Aaron: I understand and like what you're saying, but really, I'm not sure how to do that. A game where "A is the best answer to B, so B changes to C, against which the best answer is D..." sounds very complicated, like I'd have to map out a hundred different moves and say what they're all good against/weak against. Is this what you're suggesting, or do you have a better idea?