Action, the Core Resolution or Just a Dull Habit?

[John Kim]

On the other hand...I don't believe Sorcerer has "focus on combat above and beyond all other interactions."  I say this because it is somewhat evident that Sorcerer's focus is, if anything, the sorcerous rituals and humanity (and as an aside, demons).  More time, system, and page count is spent describing those rituals, humanity, and demons than there is handling combat, damage and weapons.  And yes, I am making a direct comparison there.  Combat = Rituals; Damage = Humanity; Demons = Weapons.  Think about it.  :D  

I'd agree with this, but I would add that focus on magic over combat isn't very new.  For example, 1st edition AD&D also spent far more time on magic than on combat.  However, Ross' question specifically was "Are there any games that spend as much energy mapping the conflict resolution of social and intellectual conflicts as they do with combat, or physical conflicts?"  

On the one hand, there are definitely games which define a generic resolution method which can be used for combat as well as social interactions.  Some of these spend extra time detailing this for combat without spending equivalent time on social/intellectual conflict, such as Over the Edge.  Others do not, such as Risus.  However, even those others I would question a bit.  For example, Risus defines its resolution as "combat" which is broken down into "attacks" which do "damage", and it has rules for PCs grouping into additive teams.  While it ostensibly applies just as well to seduction as to physical combat, I am somewhat doubtful.  I'm trying to imagine the interaction of the team rules and seduction, and it makes for a very icky mental picture.  

The point is, even if the rules claim that they are generic for all conflict, they still can be biased towards physical combat.  Social and intellectual conflicts often have very different dynamics to them.  For example, teams are frequently not additive.  The nature of damage is also quite different.  So while I allow for the possibility of a system that works equally well for all three, a generic system might also just be applying principles from physical conflict and forcing them onto other conflict.

[M. J. Young]

The central problem with combat in RPGs is that, for whatever reason, game systems want to play out combat blow-by-blow, whereas other interactions are resolved by a single roll.....

There is another approach, which (oddly) I have never seen anyone use -- make combat as simple as anything else.  Thus, resolve it in a single simple contest.  Allow margin of success to determine the outcome (injury, death, or such.)  Or just let the victor determine the outcome and have a social contract enforce it.  Say that, after one roll, combat "breaks up," unless both parties want it to continue, in which case it keeps going until one of them drops.....

Is there a combat system out there that behaves like this?

Legends of Alyria.

If an action is not opposed, it is automatic.

When an action is opposed, it results in a conflict. This is not combat, specifically, but conflict. Each character then picks one (of three) attributes which will be the basis of his effort, and states why that will be the basis. That is, Force: I'm going to threaten him with physical harm; Determination: I'm going to stand firm and not back down. Insight: I'm going to show him the error of his ways. Players have two options. One is that a player can activate a trait, either his own or his opponents, either in his favor or against his opponent. An activated trait replaces the value of the attribute. The other is either side may spend a metagame point to take the resolution out of the hands of the dice and have it automatically resolved--an inspiration point causes it to be resolved for good, and a corruption point for evil, in an ultimate sense (that is, not for the good or ill of either character specifically). Once it's determined what the values are, each side rolls against his opponent's score. If one side wins and the other loses, the conflict is resolved in that direction, measured subjectively by the difference in scores. If both sides lose, the conflict is unresolved (it may or may not continue, as the parties prefer). If both sides win, the superior win succeeds, but the inferior win gains something (ties are broken according to which side had the higher target value needed to roll).

Thus a single roll determines the outcome of most confrontations, whether expressed as a slight and a cold stare at a party, a public debate in the town square, or an armed confrontation on a highway in the wilderness.

One detail: no character dies unless that player chooses it.

Does that do what you mean?

--M. J. Young

[Mike Holmes]

The point is, even if the rules claim that they are generic for all conflict, they still can be biased towards physical combat.

This is very true. Again, I agree that Sorcerer, and Hero Wars both have slight slants in that direction, but less so than most other games. Risus and Alyria are purely Conflict resolution systems with no particular bias.

There is the question of what constitutes a bias. I'll use my Synthesis system as an example because it skirts one line. That is, the system has absolutely no special rules for fighting at all. But in the text, I do have an example of how to use the Conflict resoution rules that run along with them, and that example happens to be a fight. That's a sort of bias I suppose.

Basically we have several levels of "bias" here:
1. Rolemaster/TROS - games that are specifically about combat in no uncertain terms. The majority of the rules regard nothing but combat. I like this level, no ambiguity.
2. D&D - lots of rules about everything including combat, but a reward system that's focused on fighting. In 3rd edition, they try to work out this bias, but tagging creatures with CRs is like putting dollar signs on them in terms of getting folks to kill them. And the vast majority of abilities are arranged around combat effectiveness, so the rewrd system is aimed at increasing character effectiveness in combat.
3. Paranoia/OTE - rules about combat are added, because, well, don't all RPGs have a combat system? The game is ostensibly about other things, and in fact the combat bias gets overrode in many or most cases by the main thrusts of situation. Begs the question why games like this need combat systems at all, however. Oh, yes, there ought to be combat in Paranioa, but there doesn't need to be a separate system for it at all. In fact, the only rules that I'd keep specific to combat is how rank makes you more effective (better color reflec armor, for instance), which reinforces the main thrust of the game, not detailed combat.
4. Hero Wars - Games that have universally applicable systems but have some small rules that pertain to how the system is particularly used in combat situations. In HW's case, it's what level of negative AP or failure case what level of incapacitation. Often this is the last thing left that looks like combat rules, basically stuff that makes it impossible for the GM to arbitrarily kill off characters on interperetation of results.
5. Synthesis - bias by example. Almost identical to level six in some ways.
6. Risus - oddly this game does have a strange little bias. In claiming that it's system is used for everything, the experienced player knows that it's saying that it's not "just for combat". Almost like it's in denial that it's a combat system. I mean why mention that it's used for x, y, and z if not to say that it's not just for y? Basically the text has no bias at all, but given that it's the context of the sea of RPGs that exist, we sense the bias. Nothing an author can do about that really, except to not make that statment that the game does about what reolution is used for. But that's potentially confusing to the traditional player, and the experienced player still knows what it descends from.

There is a level 7, but I can't think of an actual example (not that one doesn't exist, but I'm not coming up with one right now; Munchausens?). That's the game where there is no Conflict resolution system at all. Where the determinants of the in-game reality aren't based on some method of adjudicating the success of competitors. Freeform deviod of other RPG tradition probably counts here.

Is there a combat system out there that behaves like this?

Ben, this point is sorta what I was getting at with Mike's Standard Rant #3 - Combat Systems. People don't even realize that there are levels other than level 2 or their close proximities. Apparently you've already taken the Red pill, Ben; good for you.

There are indeed systems that work this way, and more coming all the time. Hero Wars is a cool example, as pointed out above. Basically if I don't want a particular combat to drag out, I do it as a simple contest, one roll, and it's over. As Chris points out, Conflict vs. Task resolution.

Mike

[Ben Lehman]

I'm aware that this thread has since gone and spawned other little threadlets, but I wanted to post some arguments and restatements for posterity before it pass into entirely obscurity.

First of all, I cannot comment on a game except on how it is written.  For instance, Over the Edge has a combat system, for better or for worse.  Most of the game's players think this is dumb, and take it out.  Nonetheless, Over the Edge has a combat system, and thus there is a systematical focus on combat as "more special" than other interactions.

Second, "Above and beyond other interactions" was a really poor choice of words, and not exactly what I meant.  What I meant was "above and beyond normal interactions," where "normal interactions" are the baseline resolution of the system.  For instance, Sorcerer has complex initiative, rounds, and damage system which means that combat's search and handling time is considerably larger than, say, bartering in a store.  It is not as complex as sorcery.

Thus, Nobilis is focused on Miracles (they are the standard action of the game) BUT it has a slight focus on physical combat because one of the few special rules outside of the miracle system is for physical damage.  That said, this isn't inappropriate for the game, it just means that it has some extra focus on combat.

Mike:  Yup, that's pretty much what I'm talking about.  I haven't used the parapalegic example, but I've come pretty close.

Sidenote:
One thing that I've found with my players is that, in general, they feel that a longer, extended combat challenge is "more fair" than a single roll.  I do not understand this -- they are the same dicerolls, and rolling more times just normalizes it.  Can anyone explain this attitude to me?

Sidenote 2:
One major issue that I have with game designers is that they seem to conflate "interesting" with "heavy system."  Thus we get monstrosities like the Storyteller social system:  "If D&D has a bunch of combat mechanics, that means combat is important to them [true.]  Thus, if we have a bunch of social mechanics, it will mean that human interactions are more important to us than combat [false.]"
Generally speaking (and in my opinion, of course), certain things (like combat, farming, and perhaps others...) can benefit from crunchy, fiddly, strangely complex systems.  Other things, like social interactions, really can't.  What is the difference between the first and the second category?

yrs--
--Ben

[Jeph]

Heh. A while back (a year?) I posted a Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy d20 Conversion over at ENWorld. Don't know if it's still there, but the entire section on weapons basically said "Only jerks carry guns. They do large, completely arbitrary amounts of damage, and piss people off." Contrarywise, the section on Annoying Other People was quite long, basically applying d20 combat to a social situation in which the goal is to get the other guy to break down and jibber like mad, so that you can make fun of them. I think elevators did something like 4d6+3 SAN damage, critcal x3, and the damage could not be healed until you left the building.

[M. J. Young]

One thing that I've found with my players is that, in general, they feel that a longer, extended combat challenge is "more fair" than a single roll.  I do not understand this -- they are the same dicerolls, and rolling more times just normalizes it.  Can anyone explain this attitude to me?

I think so. It is certainly possible to make a system whereby you live or die by a single roll. It also makes combat extremely hazardous and unpredictable. Even if you can only die by rolling a 3 on 3d10, there's that 1/1000 chance that you're going to die when you throw the dice. Now, if you've got to be hit at least three or four times, and there's a chance due to secondary damage calculations that this won't kill you either, then you can survive. It means that your opponent probably isn't going to fall on the first strike, either; but that's the cost for your own safety. People don't want combat systems that will kill them quickly, unless they're playing in something like Unknown Armies where the point is that you can die fast and horribly at any moment so you have to take other kinds of precautions to stay alive (like, don't get in a fight if you can avoid it).

In short, you spend a lot of time in some games building up a character whose power base is built on the fact that the odds are in his favor. The more rolls you have to make to kill such a character, the less likely it is that a streak of bad dice luck will finish him.

Generally speaking..., certain things (like combat, farming, and perhaps others...) can benefit from crunchy, fiddly, strangely complex systems.  Other things, like social interactions, really can't.  What is the difference between the first and the second category?

I think the difference lies in the degree to which success is in the imaginary sphere.

That is, a game could benefit from a lot of detail about driving techniques, how the car moves, doing special turns, and all the fancy stuff you see in action films and such. Get a rating in how well you do these things (individually or collectively) and roll the dice to see whether you succeed, or just how badly you did and what you have to do about it now. It's all in the imagination, in the world we're creating between us.

Compare that to a debate between two characters about an issue. We could try to set up a detailed system whereby a character can attempt to use a fallacy, or can call an opponent on a fallacy, or can marshal statistics or refute statistics or move an audience emotionally or appeal to reason, and then roll the dice, and figure out who won the debate. Yet at that point, what we don't know is, what the heck happened? That is, the content of the driving was the motion of the car; but the content of the debate was the information that passed between the participants. "You won the debate." "Great; what did I say?" It fails because the content of the contest is not in the imaginary space unless we create it in the real space; and the mechanics can't do that.

Does that help?

--M. J. Young

[Marco]

In my book yer on a roll tonight, MJ. You articulated exactly what I was trying to get to in the Lawyers and Debates thread.

Another reason to dislike 1-roll combat: if the system in question involves tactics or strategy (or even retreat) multi-turn combat can allow for a change in strategy ("Run away!"). With one roll, that's out of your hands.

-Marco

[Mike Holmes]

Interestingly, what Hero Wars does is say that all contests can be resolved either using a short method, or a long method. So it doesn't matter what the contest is like, you can decide on the spot how much Drama needs to go into the moment, and use the appropriate mechanic. So if you don't think that you can do a particular debate using the extended mechanics, you don't have to. If you want to make sure that tactical options and changes in strategy are open to your character, then you use the extended method for your combat. Just like people seem to be prefering.

OTOH, I've done battles of Shakespear-like banter and other such non-combat stuff as extended conflicts, and it works like a charm. And combats with throawaway villains I resolve in one roll, to the player's delight. So it allows versatility to go for the method that makes the most sense in each particular case.

Mike

[Mortaneus]

There is another approach, which (oddly) I have never seen anyone use -- make combat as simple as anything else.  Thus, resolve it in a single simple contest.  Allow margin of success to determine the outcome (injury, death, or such.)  Or just let the victor determine the outcome and have a social contract enforce it.  Say that, after one roll, combat "breaks up," unless both parties want it to continue, in which case it keeps going until one of them drops.

Here's one that uses a single roll to determine the results of a combat:  Children of Fire