Anti-Combat Bias (kinda long)

[damion]

Well, you could make a 'social combat' system, ie.e with rounds, and everything, but it would probably only be suitable for a game about debate teams. Also, most people don't like debate enough to actually roleplay it.
Combat lends itself to a 'lower granularity system' for several reasons, in my view.

1)It breaks up readily in to actions, I hit you, you hit me,ect. Resolving each swing is an obvious step.
2)You can't roleplay combat very well, unless you are in the SCA. :) Many reasons here.

3)It's something few have experiance with, so it's interesting. Even people I know who have been in the army have little true combat experiance, and no-one has experiance with medieval combat.

4)Combat is often described on long detail in books. Combat is probalby the only activity that lendes itself to a long description that occurse reasonably often in a RPG. This  is  simulationist thing. Suppose you wanted to do all activities at 'round' granularity. The problem is you would need a seperate list of actions, ect for each activity. (Ok, your cooking, you gather ingredients, spill some flour, get some wax paper....) Thus you can only represent a few things this way.  The only other long scenes in books tend to be 1)Interpersonal interactions-which are usually roleplayed, and thus can be as detailed as combat. Also it's harder to structure this as rules. (Ok, the barmaid laughs at your joke, you get 3 fun points and your attractivness goes up a point to her). It feels weird also, as we have experiance with this, and know how to do it.  2)The only other thing I can think of that's detailed in books and there may be less experiance with is intimate encounters, and well, there's and RPG net article if you really want ti go there.

The only other activity I can think of in a game that is similar is hacking, and that is because it has the same attributes as combat. It's tense, people have little experiance with it, there's risk, and it's important to the game.

To sum up:People have little experiance with actual combat, it involves risk, and is common enough  that a subsystem wouldn't be wasted.
This is more an analysis of my guess why traditional RPG's evolved this way, rather than what to fix.

[Marco]

Doing it this way pushes games toward combat, in my opinion, because non-combat actions can be resolved via one die roll.  
Blake

I don't get this. Some of the games that've had the heaviest combat systems have been the ones where I've seen the least combat (Morrow Project). In short: to my experience there are many many more important factors determning how a game gets played then how many pages it devotes to combat (the one VtM game I ran ... in GURPS, of course ... had very little combat--but it was pretty true to the subject material which I found fairly interesting).

I realize there's a tendency to read a book and try to analyze what the authors thought was important by the amount of space they devoted to different things.

That kind of analysis is interesting but I don't think it's an especially meaningful one compared to others (like, say, the background material included in the game).

-Marco

[Valamir]

I think Marco its important to make a distinction between truly great GMs and the "typical" GM who gets coralled by a bunch of his friends to run something.

A truely great GM could run an absolutely earth shattering role play experience with the crappiest set of of house rules imaginable.  That doesn't change the fact that the rules are crap.

Similiarly, a great GM isn't necessarily going to be influenced by the volume of text dedicated to a particular topic, as you've suggested.  And if the group is playing a game, where only the GM has the rule book anyway, then they're going to be far more bound by the GM's vision than the book.

However, I do think there is alot of merit to the idea as a rule of thumb.  A rule which, like all rules of thumb, has its exceptions.  What draws a readers attention and what sticks in his head is going to be influenced by what is written most about.  Many games devote 1 or 2 pages to basic mechanics for which there are a dozen or more skills which utilize those basic mechanics.  They'll then turn around and devote 10 pages plus to special permutations of those mechanics as they apply to combat.  Any time you shine a spot light on something its going to get attention, and by extension, be assumed to have a greater degree of importance.

Now this isn't at all a problem with a game that is supposed to have a combat oriented focus.  The bias that Jake was noting about games not needing a combat mechanic I think was taken slightly out of context.

The bias, as I see it, is not against combat mechanics.  Its against assuming you need combat mechanics.   For a game like TRoS you definitely NEED combat mechanics.  Thats a big part of what the game is about.  For a game like Dust Devils, you don't.  Sure there are all kinds of firefights and shoot outs in Dust Devils...but these are important only for what they say about your characters (shoot or give up the gun) not for any tactical exercise.  Combat in DD is just the color being given to what is essentially an act of character development.

Often times, however, you'll come across a game which, like Dust Devils, has no need for a special set of combat mechanics.  Yet the designer will have included them.  Often they'll have included them, largely because of some variation on the idea of "that's just the way games are supposed to be designed".  The "bias" that Jake notes is one of advising careful consideration to whether or not that's really the case.  Not one of suggesting it shouldn't be the case ever.

[Mike Holmes]

I feel that I should comment. I have this feeling that it was my Rant that caused some of this to erupt. But I can only see it as a misinterpretation of what I wrote. Perhaps I am not actually in any way the target of this discussion, but I'll respond just in case. Because if it's not me, then who is it? Sure there are people who agreed with me. But how many of them actually don't have combat systems in their games? And which of them are telling people not to put combat systems in their games? Mostly me. It would seem that I am the largest part of the "anti-combat bias". But again, perhaps I overestimate my own importance.

Let's look at my position. I am not anti-combat in RPGs; on the contrary, I like combat. I am not even anti-combat system. Not in the slightest. I am against people putting combat systems in their game as an assumption. That they do so without even thinking about the possibility that there might not be a need.

I both understand and agree that certain games don't need one because it isn't the focus of the game.

Then we don't disagree. All I've ever said is that a game that does not focus on combat at all should not have a combat system. That said, I think that most people do choose to make combat important. And I have no problem with that choice. But I do have a problem with the assumption.

...but most RPGs at some point or another turn to combat as a form of climactic resolution to a problem. No, not all, I agree. But most. More than most. In my group, just about all. Why?

I'll tell you why. It's the assumption at work. You are making a circular argument, Jake. To paraphrase, "Combat systems are good because we play games with combat systems in them with inevitably lead to resolution by combat system, which since we do it must make it right". It is precisely because we play games that all have combat systems that this is the sort of resolution that occurs.

Few designers say, "Gee, I think it would be cool to have a RPG about combat, because that's dramatic." Instead they say, "Well, I have to have a combat system because RPGs have combat systems. So I guess resolution will be a lot about the combat." Let's look at your case, Jake. Your well-know goal in creating TROS was to create compelling combat. Because combat in other systems was lacking. Well, if those other systems hadn't all had combat systems would you have had your objection? Perhaps, but much less likely. I am willing to accept that you, or another particular designer took into account these things and then headed forward to create a game about combat because that seemed the best thing to do. But my guess is that you didn't even give it a second thought.

Nor should you have. You're game gets a pass because it very much was developed with the idea that it was going to be a better combat system. As opposed to a guy who wants to make, say, a sci-fi game. If he does not tell me that he wants cool combat as a specific part of the design, then I will ask him why he's bothering putting a combat system in.

I think, though, that for most of these cases (man am I generalizing today...) what really needs to be said is "99% of combats in RPGs bore me frikkin' to death, and I don't want your game to do that to me when I can do it somewhere else."

Well, I am apparently in the 1% (despite being about 100% of such posts that say that one should not have a combat system). Because I love most combat systems, even those that the estimable Jake Norwood says are shite. I am a fan of Rolemaster for example. My point is merely that we already have Rolemaster. And TROS. And other games in which combat is the focus. And, once again, if that's not the focus of the given game system, then why in heaven's name are we putting one in?

I am saying that instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater (a common practice in revolutionary movements, and the Forge is a breeding ground for revolutionary and revolutionary-wanna-be movements), that maybe we should first say "what kind of combat are you looking at for this game?

This is not throwing the baby out. It's planned parenthood. Once you put that baby combat system in there, it's going to affect the game. You should consider well the effects before including it. Again, to assume that we're throwing the baby out is to assume that there's one there automatically to begin with. Which there's not.

How often are PCs going to be fighting as you envision things? Never or rarely--no combat system at all. Constantly--better have an entertaining one that fits your mood/premise, or you lose. Why? Because Combat IS important to most gamers (I dare say), but its always done so poorly that we start thinking that we're better off without it.

This argument I'll accept. Even if it's bad for your game, some gamers will expect it. But that's marketing. I wasn't speaking to creating a salable game so much as a well designed one. That said, if we always go with the "tried and true" things will never change. So pardon me if my rant was an attempt to alter the paradigm.

That said, I find that once people play a system that has no combat system, many (by far not all, but many) find that the experience is a better one for there not being a special system for combat.

Combat in Gamism: should promote competition, winning, etc. Lethality (or rather, losing) should be low and/or not too painful, as Gamist-types hate dying (that's my experience with them). It should not be dull.

I agree that any arena that is being competed in when looking at a Gamist design should be emphasized so as to make it interesting in a "tactical" manner. But again this assumes that competition has to be about physical conflict. I could make a Gamist game that, like Monopoly, dealt with the acquisition of money. That would not require detailed combat rules, but rather detailed financial rules. In fact, I am still waiting for someone to make this game, as I think that I'd find it more fun than Jello. But the combat assumption makes it unlikely that we'll see it so soon. In any case, modify SOAP, a bit, and you can see that such designs are easily accomplished, and potentially very entertaining.

Combat in Narrativism: should promote the story/premise at hand, and should be worth imortalizing in paint later. Dramatic or otherwise powerful from a "what really just happened here...it was more than athletics, wasn't it?" And it should not be dull.

Yep. Which never requires anything outside of the "standard resolution" system that the game will probably include. Unless the Narrativist Premise is specifically about Combat. Still waiting for a functional Narrativist game about Combat. Actually, TROS comes close (functional, but does not address combat per se as a Narrativist Premise; hence "what's worth fighting for" is the TROS Premise, not something like "Honor of combat" - one can drift that way)

Combat in Simulationism: should be "realistic" (whatever that means) enough to suspend the players' disbelief or at least carry the proper mood/tone/atomosphere for the setting at hand (simmy combat systems for TOON and TROS would be very different, but both "real" on their own grounds). It should give us simmy types the rush of battle, and should avoid unneccesary detail for what we're trying to simulate. And it should not be dull.

Makes sense for TOON and TROS as these are both focused on combat. But why for goodness sake does Traveller have a combat system? This is so dysfunctional that I can't even state it enough. Combat in the future is portrayed as lethal. And, the systems used are actually not "unrealistic" particularly. The original Traveller systems and GURPS, are actually pretty "realistic" in that they are as lethal as billed. What happens? Seeing the focus on the combat system, players get all sorts of weapons and armor, and end up resolving things by fighting. Which ends up with lots of dead characters. I can't tell you how distressing this has been over nearly a quarter century of playing this game. All avoidable if Traveller just didn't have a combat system. Players would sensibly avoid combat then.

Why did the designers include one? Because the other RPGs did. Don't all RPGs have combat systems?

Other games here fit the "it doesn't need a CS" mold...but what are they?
-OctaNe, InSpectres, Dust Devils, etc...
All games that focus on player-driven direction. When that's the case, they don't need combat rules, because it's built into the director-stance stuff. But I don't think that most of the games getting designed here are like that. They're intentionally structured, maybe a little simulationist, because that's what so many of us got used to when we fell in love with RPGs.

So it's OK if games with Director Power mechanics don't have combat systems? So you've just opened up a whole huge category of exception based on the use of certain mechanics. Can't we assume then that there are other potentially good ways to accomplish the desired goal without resorting to a separate Combat System? As in the case of Dust Devils where the normal Combat Resolution system takes care of combat very well, mechanically (as well as any other conflict). And again, I am supposed to give designers a pass because they are designing  "what so many of us got used to when we fell in love with RPGs." how can I as a consumer of said RPGs possibly be concerned with that. I can only be concerned with the output, and how it works for me. And Traveller should never have had a Combat System. I love Sim, but combat has a place and time, and need not be privileged.

...let's help people create combat systems that we want to play instead of pretending that most games can do without them.

So I am pretendintg when I say that I think that a particular system doesn't need a combat system? I'm just rebelling against bad combat systems? Again, this must be about someone else. I must be mistaken that this is about me.

assuming they want it. If they don't, well...there needs to be a way to handle combat (because I promise you, if I ever play, I'm getting into a fight), even if it's a set of guidlines for using the blanket system that resolves everything.

And here's where I see how far you particularly have bought into the assumption. Why can't a blanket system resolve combat as is? Why must there be any other rules? Why? I guarantee you that if you get into a fight in any of my systems that have no combat system, that I'll know exactly how to resolve it. And that for me and some others that said resolution will be very cool in its effect, and the method of determination. You may not like it (or maybe you would, I can't know), but that does not mean that everyone feels the same way.

As I've said, people that I've seen exposed to such resolution seem to think it's just fine, and some think it's an improvement. But what I can guarantee you will improve by doing without a combat system is focus on anything else in the game.

Mike

[M. J. Young]

At the risk of turning an incredibly long thread into an impossibly long one, I'd like to toss out some observations about the incorporation of combat into regular resolution systems.

My impression of the Multiverser resolution system is that it is a single system within which variation addresses the details of particular kinds of actions. (I know I co-authored the rules; understand that I came to the project after the core concepts were largely in place, and was primarily employed in the task of working out the details and getting it to paper.) There is a very simple skill+attribute+bias+/-modifiers system that is used for everything, including combat.

Now, if you're going to use it for magic, there are modifiers related to faith, to ritual, to circumstances; and some of these are presented in detail, to provide a degree of consistency to the game. That is, if you are using a skill that petitions a deity or spirit power to take action on your behalf ("holy magic"), you add a score based on your religion or occult knowledge to your chance of success. Similarly, if you are using the magic against someone directly, there might be penalties against your success based on who they are. I mention magic, because it illustrates this aspect of the system remaining one system yet with variation for the application in an area outside combat.

If you are using it for combat, suddenly there are a wealth of factors which can, if used by the players, become part of those "modifiers". There is always the inclusion of a number representing the attacker's innate ability to hit a target, and another for the defender's innate ability to avoid being hit (these generally cancel each other out for ordinary characters, but not when one combatant is particularly talented). There might be bonuses for targeting skills or sighting equipment, penalties for protections or avoidance skills, considerations of cover, range, size, and movement, any of which might be invoked by a situation to demand adjustments. In a sense it can't be helped. After all, if you have a high powered rifle with a telescopic sight and you want to shoot the villain from a mile away, how do we determine your odds of success?

Yet it is the same system; yet it may seem it is not. Combat is sufficiently detailed in terms of the possibilities that it is given its own chapter; but magic is also given its own chapter, in which its details are presented. In the end, whether it is combat or magic or any other skilled action, it is the same resolution system; it is only the specifics of the modifiers and the amount of information the rules themselves provide.

It should also be noted that in the beginning of the combat chapter it recognizes that for some combat is of little interest; and that the discussion of combat is in part intended to illustrate how skills generally operate. One could easily use the same system, with different modifiers, to run a debate, or a race, or a poker game. Combat is used as the example because it gets more use in more situations, not because we particularly want it to dominate the game (and generally it does not, unless the players push for that).

One of the problems I have with combat systems in games (and perhaps my influence on Multiverser was felt here) is that they seem to my mind to make arbitrary distinctions between what is and is not a combat skill. You might think it simple, but there are too many circumstantial questions. Lighting up a room so you can see what is in it is probably not a combat skill; lighting up a room so that the vampires or orcs or other creatures of darkness within it will be disadvantaged or even wounded by the light probably is. Shooting at people is almost always combat; shooting at targets generally is not. Having a single system that covers all actions allows you to shift them between modes easily, but considering what modifiers have to apply when they are used against someone which are not necessary when they are merely used for practical applications.

So I wonder whether the problem is less that people include combat systems in games that don't particularly need them then that they so often assume that those combat systems have to be completely different resolution mechanics from everything else they do.

Maybe this should have been a new thread; but it seemed to me to be responding to Mike particularly and several others as well, so I've risked pushing this one over another page to explore the idea further.

--M. J. Young

[Mike Holmes]

If you read the Combat System Rant, I state exactly what you've said, MJ. That if one is going to have special rules for combat that they ought to be simply extensions of the single resolution system. Note how far D&D3E goes towards accomplishing this (especially considering where they were originally). I see this as simply the application of the design principle that says that more elegant is better.

But even that caveat can be voided if the game is specifically enough about combat. Because the extent to which the rules are different is the extent to which the player is informed that combat is privileged in some way. Or, put another way, if the stat is on the sheet, the player is going to try and use it at some point. Most players. Most games.

The point is that the extent to which special rules are put in for any facet of the game should match the designers exact intent to ensure that the game is more about that particular facet. That he wants play to revolve around that facet. Because it will.

Multiverser is an interesting case because, IIRC, don't you have special rules for just about everything? Maybe not as much as combat or magic, but I seem to recal you saying that there were detailed modifiers for doing anything on the skill list. If combat just has a larger list of modifiers, then it wouldn't stand out all that much.

Mike

[M. J. Young]

If you read the Combat System Rant, I state exactly what you've said, MJ.

Sorry; I'm struggling to keep up with the new posts around here as it is, and have not found time to go back through the archives. It's my own fault, as I knew that there were forums here populated with intelligent and interesting posters, but was too busy at the time to add yet another task to me day list.

Multiverser is an interesting case because, IIRC, don't you have special rules for just about everything? Maybe not as much as combat or magic, but I seem to recal you saying that there were detailed modifiers for doing anything on the skill list. If combat just has a larger list of modifiers, then it wouldn't stand out all that much.

That's a fairly accurate statement. That is, for just about anything you can think to do, there's likely to be some reference to what degree of ability would be the ordinary chance of success and what sort of penalties or bonuses are appropriate for significant variation from it. There are a few general principles for how to do these things (such as each doubling of the ability in any way takes ten percentage points off the chance of success, and each halving adds ten percentage points to it), but the rules take the time to provide a framework for just about everything, whether it's combat or magic or time travel or symbiotic body linking. There are four scores on a character sheet that relate specifically (if not exclusively) to combat--could be described as innate ability with ranged weapons, innate ability with close combat weapons, innate ability to avoid being hit, and amount of damage which can be survived--so in that sense combat edges out everything else. (Each "bias area", technology, psionics, magic, and body, has two numbers, best relevant attribute and bias level, which are needed for skills of that sort; but every combat skill is also a skill in one of those bias areas, so those extra numbers for combat use are still extra.) On the other hand, there is a tendency for character papers to fill up with skills that are not generally combat-related, such that diversity seems to be the watchword of the game. If the character paper is a reflection of what's important in the game, then I suppose that whatever the player wants to do and be is what's important in the game.

Ultimately, you're right; if a game covers something in more detail, it's probably going to get more play. In some cases it's a chicken and egg problem--that is, did they include all these rules because during playtesting this is what people did with the system, or did people do this with the system during playtesting because they had these rules? We could quibble about the measure of such things--is it number of pages in the rules, or prominence and space on the character sheet, or level of detail in the applicable mechanics--but it is at least hoped that a game designer can influence players' perceptions of how the game should be played through the design of the rules, and at some level that influence will come from the amount of material dedicated to particular aspects of the game world.

--M. J. Young