All dice on offence!

[Jake Norwood]

Let him do it. There's nothing wrong with it for any character...it's his choice. My experience is that while many will fall to the left and to the right, sooner or later he'll roll poorly, and then he'll die.

Also, any opponents with shields, secondary weapons, longer range, or friends will cause him a lot of trouble and either kill him or wisen him up.

Jake

[Mike Holmes]

Also, any opponents with shields, secondary weapons, longer range, or friends will cause him a lot of trouble and either kill him or wisen him up.

I think that's an important point that's maybe not coming out. While there may be circumstances where one can win a fight by simply placing a massive first blow, it's not the best tactic to take. It's flashy and fun, and it gets the job done about as quick as anything else. But there are even safer ways to approach the problem.

Mike

[Lyrax]

You could also just have him face a (human?) opponent who has an unknown amount of dice.  Make it clear that the PC has no idea how skilled this man is.  If the PC isn't cautious, you can make the dude have a CP of 16-18 dice, and kill the PC.  Very messily.  Why?  Because the PC did something stupid.  I don't usually kill my PCs, but I will if they do something stupid.

[Jaeger]

I really must respectfully disagree with Lyrax's last post. In my opinion killing a PC on purpose like that is not only bad form, but also bad GMing. And could cause problems with the group if the player finds out you made up his opponents CP after he declared his attack, with the intent of killing him.

Why does the GM have to go out of his way to punish players for being stupid? In my experience game mechanics take care of such characters nicely. If you run a consistent campaign, stupid PC's will sort themselves out just fine without any GM intervention.

Jake's post was more on the button. The law of averages says sooner or later the PC will be slotted by his opponent if he continues to attack in that fashion. All it takes is one bad roll, and the player has no one to blame but himself.

A question for Mokkurkale: Why do you want to force this player to change his playing style? Just make the adventure and let them run with it. A Gm should not try to make a player roleplay/fight with his charactor the way YOU want him to. It kinda defeats the purpose of it being "his" charactor.

Players will pick up on the fact that you're trying to change/discourage the way they play, or kill them off because you don't like thier playing style. The bad feelings that would create would be detremental to a long term playing group.

Just stick to worrying about making good adventures; let the players worry about thier charactors. In my experience it makes for a happier group all around.

[Mokkurkalfe]

Fighting with this style tend to be very, very boring and with the tactical touch of a refrigerator.
Though I should perhaps say that he has changed now, since he faced an NPC with higher CP than his. He was aware of that, or at least aware of that the NPC was very good. All dice on attack, the NPC countered and got lots of dice against none. While the PC survived after some help from his friend, he has now learned a very valuable lesson and will have to limp for some time.

[Jaeger]

Yes, I'm sure combat the way the player "used" to fight got nauseating with its repetition, and had the tactical finess of a hurled brick. But fighting that way is the players decision to make, not ours as GM's.

And it sounds as if this were splendidly resolved in the best way possible! The player was in a situation where he knew the score and had ample information to not act stupidly. He then acted like an idiot and was promptly punished for it (Through the mechanics of the games fighting system!)

And you didn't have to go out of your way to set the PC up for the fall - he did it though his own stupidity. (Assuming you didn't intentionally set him up - see the above about bad form).

Anyway I guess what I'm trying to say is that as GM's we should be neutral towards the PC's playing styles. we should not form personal likes or dislikes.
Because the moment we say to ourselves "I don't like the way he's playing his charactor, I'm going to do something about it." That's the moment the game goes from from PC's vs. the game world to PC's vs. the GM. Which is not good for any campaign.

[Mokkurkalfe]

The fight with that NPC was kinda of a setup actually, but to the PC's advantage. That time, there was three PC's against this lone NPC. It was like a touch of what might happen, but under controlled circumstances. Had it been a one-on-one, or if his friends had been busy, he would have been slaughtered. That would be to harsh, even if realistic.
Now, should he ever face any tough opposition(purely for roleplaying reasons this time) I can sit back, knowing that he knows that an all-out attack on a superior enemy is very foolish. Should he do it anyway, he'll die, but he had one chance to learn his lesson, and I would feel no regret.
He still uses a *lot* of dice against inferior enemies, though, but that doesn't bug me at all. If it works, it goes.

[Mike Holmes]

He still uses a *lot* of dice against inferior enemies, though, but that doesn't bug me at all. If it works, it goes.

Just curious; how does the player know how tough his opponent is? I mean, under certain circumstances, say, against an unarmed individual, this may be obvious. But under many circumstances, how does the player know? If you just keep the opponent's pool a mystery until you roll it, the player will have to be more careful until he gets the feel of his opponent the first round. Right? You're not letting him seehis opponent's pool, are you?

Mike

[Mokkurkalfe]

Well, the average gol grunt or soldier is very often inferior, since the PC is getting good. Those times he encounters more skilled baddies, including better-than-usual "average guys", I usually hint at the fellas skill after a PER roll. If he fails, I say that he cannot guess the skill of this opponent, making him, and anyone with some sense, more careful.
If he OTOH fumbles, he may be in for a suprise(this foe is clearly no match for you...). This happened once, and caused much laughter and glee among the other players.

[Brian Leybourne]

IMO a Per roll is too easy, it indicates that anyone can do it, where as I think that it actually takes training to be able to look at another person and see the way they're standing, how fluid their movements are, how confident they look etc and be able to judge how good they are.

Sounds like a perfect use for the skills "body language" and/or "style analysis" to me.

Brian.

[Jake Norwood]

Sounds like a perfect use for the skills "body language" and/or "style analysis" to me.

Brian.

actully that's exactly what this skill is for. Style analysis, that is.

Jake

[Mokkurkalfe]

Then I'll just change it to a Style Analysis then.

[Mike Holmes]

I assumed Style Analysis as well. But I'd also assess a penalty on such a roll unless the character had seen the opponenet fight. If I coma around a corner, and see a Gol, and rush to attack it, I have little time to assess it's ability. I always assumed that the Style analysis roll would be to determine the ability of a character who I'd seen fighting a bit. Watch long enough, and it becomes a simple matter.

But often you will have no time to assess your foe. In that case, I'd allow a roll, but with a TN that was say five higher. For each exchange, I'd lower the TN by one, to a min of, say one or two less than the Style Analysis normal TN. Something like that.

In fact, you can probably tell more about an opponents ability pre-fight from their body language. OTOH, people can fake body language. With a successful roll, an opponent should be telegraphing a number that is higher or lower than his actual CP based on the number of successes he rolls. Make it a Body Language roll itself or something. So the ability to detect a character's actual CP would be based off of a contest of the two character's body language skills, in effect.

I'd also consider rolling all combat dice in secret. So that a player can guess how many are being rolled, but does not know for sure. He can just sim this in narration to the player ("He's coming with an unbalanced strong overhead attack" probably means most of his dice.) Making rolls to size up the opponent even more important. This is very dramatic, and realistic. Gives you something to do on those exchanges where both throw white.

This means that the GM should play dumb as well. The opponents should have no idea what the players are doing exaclty either. In any case, not knowing how many dice the opponent will use will make people play defensively, and this is also realistic. May draw combats out a little, and make those small wounds a bit more common. Certainly will make players play more tactically, which is what we're looking for, right?

Mike

[Jake Norwood]

I'll agree with Mike, except to re-emphasise that all CP rolls (attack, defense) are made "on the table" for all to see. That way an observant player would konw an opponent's CP by the end fo the first round, assuming his opponent is using them all. It's fun sometimes to not use them for 2 or 3 rounds and let the players get comfy and start planning around it, then "YIKES! The bad guy's got 4 more dice!?! Where'd those come from???"

It's a great expression.

Jake

[Mike Holmes]

I'm sure that works if the character survives. But not using all your dice could be fatal. Still, if one were to play very defensively, one could survive until the opponent got complacent....

Still, I'd like to see what would happen with all rolls hidden. Anyone willing to try out a test of this? I think it would have a cool feel.

Mike