First play impressions of TROS

[Anthony I]

I ran a game of TROS for my group last week and I thought I'd post my impressions.  

First off, any negativity you see in this applies to my group's perceptions and desires from gaming and is no way an attempt to malign TROS.  

I tried the "Doomed Caravan" one-shot as a good starting point; with the intention of having the players create their actual characters afterwards, with the only condition being that they some how tie into the caravan massacre.  I feel that the "Caravan" start helps to show the players a) the easily realized lethality of TROS combat (fight smart or die) & b) how the Spiritual Attributes work in play.  It also gives the players some easily accessible hooks to "get the group together" instead of some GM derived contrivance.  All the characters were pre-gen'd with some SA's that would be applicable- we just hopped into play.  

Upsides (these are things I like about TROS)

I really like TROS character gen system- I know it's not an original idea, but it is well implemented and feels good when you use it.
The combat system really does capture the nuances of the ebb & flow of combat and is really cool.
The SA's are awesome, not only as GM guides, but they just force the players to create character goals that the player actually cares about.  (I can't believe Jake almost didn't include them)
The magic system is cool- except for the science-like guidelines
The absolute abandonment of "game balance"- good riddance
Insight points.

Downsides (these are things I didn't like about TROS)

Really, the only thing that I didn't like (much to my surprise) was the "reality" of the combat system.

I tend to be a Sim player, and while I can see and appreciate the elegance of TROS's combat system, it doesn't meet my (or the group I play with) desired play-goals.  Not because of Incoherence, but because of social contract (we had never discussed it till that night, but none of us were really interested in that gritty and realistic type of combat resolution).  It's kind of funny, I would have known there was a problem, but I didn't have the vocabulary or tools to actually determine what was wrong and what I wanted from my gaming experiences, or to even think about another type of play (I had a really hard time seeing the box, let alone trying to see outside of it) until I started reading things at the Forge (I'm still new, so if I made some basic mistakes or wrong assumptions with GNS and the related materials-sorry).

All said, TROS is such a good game, and I like so many things about it, that I can only say I was surprised that I didn't like actually playing it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Anthony,

My friends and I had similar reactions after our first session. Here's what we did to improve our experiences.

1. De-emphasize the combat maneuvers. With a couple of exceptions, they really don't affect most exchanges significantly in comparison to big ol' handfuls of Spiritual Attribute dice. For our play style, and possibly for yours, the effort to learn and apply them was far too costly for the extra depth-level they provided.

Keep all the evasion options, for sure. But don't bother with all the kewl ones. Just let the combat narrative arise from the offense/defense allocations.

2. Pick and choose which special weapon effects you'll actually use, carefully. Then use those and ignore all the other ones. I'm talking about all the stuff about what a mace does to what sort of armor, in the weapon descriptions.

3. Don't worry much about tracking damage for many combatants; if Pain and Blood Loss look really ugly on a single hit, just have that guy lurch out of the fight spraying blood and fainting.

4. Handle all red/white stuff informally except (arely) when two opponents really want to square off and psych-out each other. If one guy says "I charge" then figure, he threw red, and go; never mind actually throwing the dice. Incidentally, this is how Jake handles it most of the time in actual play.

These helped us a lot, and as a couple-three sessions went by, everyone was familiar enough with the system that I (the GM) could focus a bit mor on combat numbers, especially damage, without hurting my brain.

Best,
Ron

[Brian Leybourne]

De-emphasize the combat maneuvers. With a couple of exceptions, they really don't affect most exchanges significantly in comparison to big ol' handfuls of Spiritual Attribute dice. For our play style, and possibly for yours, the effort to learn and apply them was far too costly for the extra depth-level they provided.

Keep all the evasion options, for sure. But don't bother with all the kewl ones. Just let the combat narrative arise from the offense/defense allocations.

I have found that this is a great way to start off a TROS game with players unfamiliar with the system. Hell, it works just fine with one guy attacking with X dice and the other defending with Y each round.

After a couple of sessions, the players will be completely comfortable with that, and will start saying things like "I wish I had the option to riposte, or to duck under his blade and come in attacking at the same time he does" etc, and that's when you can slowly start introducing different maneuvers.

That worked for us, anyway.

Brian.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Yeah, I forgot to mention that we did integrate the maneuvers into play, over time.

Best,
Ron

[Anthony I]

Ron and Brian, thanks for the replies.  Actually, I did strip the TROS combat down to pretty bare bones.  Still didn't like it.

 I think I'll wait a month or so, an try TROS again, this time I'll have all the players create their own characters and let them play without the forced combat.  When combat comes up I'll reduce the combat down to pick your number of attack/defense dice and roll for successes.  It doesn't get much more basic than that.  I will probably also implement a "hit point" type system- my wife and the other female player will probably like this better.

If that doesn't work, then I'm afraid I'll just have to admire TROS, but won't play it.  Or wait and let someone else GM it so I can play and see if I like it from that angle.

[Valamir]

I will probably also implement a "hit point" type system- my wife and the other female player will probably like this better.

I'm confused.  What is more likeable about hit points?

[Anthony I]

I'm confused.  What is more likeable about hit points?

The players in my group specificly didn't like the lethality of TROS's combat system- hit points can help create the illusion that it isn't as dangerous- something as easy as...say your TO + HLTH= hit points...or whatever.  Don't forget, I'm not knocking TROS, but trying to find a way to make it more enjoyable for my group.  I don't know if I really want to try drifting TROS or find something that just meets our play goals.

[Valamir]

Ahhh, I'll just point out that the perception of TROS's lethality is often an inaccurate assessment based on applying Hit Point game tactics.  

TROS is actually not very lethal at all as long as you apply TROS tactics.  The difference is that TROS tactics are inspired by actual historical fighting manuals and the modern recreation of those historical techniques, where as Hit Point games (ala D&D) are inspired by mass combat war game rules.  In a mass combat game troops are defeated through attrition...the gradual loss of men and morale until the unit breaks and is routed.  Hit Points are an attempt to translate this to a 1:1 scale.

Its thats reliance and expectation of attrition that provides the disconnect.  It a hit point game you have:  wound, wound, wound, wound, dead...gradually accumulating "damage" until the threshold is reached.  In TROS you have:  defend, defend, defend, defend, wound.

Now if one compares the debilitating effects of a TROS wound with a D&D "wound" one would quickly conclude that TROS is very lethal...this comes from the attrition assumption that wounds are something you suffer regularly and which accumulate over time.  THAT's the mindset that must change.  In TROS, wounds are something you avoid at all costs.

But ultimately, you have about the same chance of dieing its just that in a hit point system you're gradually whittled away.  Many players then get in the habit of treating "how many HPs I have left" as a guage of how much danger there in.  They don't start getting worried until they get low.  In TROS you are always in danger and have to be worried all the time.  As long as you are worried all the time, however, and play accordingly, you won't die any more frequently.

So if its really the lethality of the situation that concerns you, there's no need to be, TROS isn't really all that lethal.  

On the other hand if its the stress of being in danger that they don't like, that's a different story.  With hit points there is very little stress involved in being in danger because as long as you have enough of them you're invincible.  Its only when you run low that there is any real danger induced stress.  In TROS you might not die any more frequently but the danger induced stress is there every single swing.  For some, that's a huge feature, but for others it might be a little intense.

[Mike Holmes]

Top follow up on Ralph's excellent points, I'll add a little on why TROS is not as lethal as it seems. And that comes down to Spiritual Attributes. This is a bunch of dice that the opposition doesn't (likely) have to rely upon. As such, it slants things in favor of the charaters. Not enough to make the player feel safe in combat, but enough that characters won't get injured badly most of the time.

If you really want to make combat less lethal to, say, make it more cinematic, just give the players more SAs. Especially Luck, which can keep them alive in all sorts of circumstances.

Other suggestions I've seen include the standard "Flesh Wound" rule. That is, the characters being heroes can get cut slightly all the time without it really affecting performance. Just reduce all wounds by one level for effect, but describe them as looking worse than they really are. So, if the wound gets reduced to 0, describe it as a nasty gash, but with no effect. The more cinematic you want things to be, the more "Free Toughness" you can give the characters like this.

Similar to this, you can reduce all wounds by one level after the end of a scene, representing cinematic ability to recover from scene to scene.

Anyhow, there are a lot of ways to buffer characters from damage that don't include going to the unrealistic HP idea. Realize that doing this, however, messes with some of the strongest features of TROS. By giving away more Luck, for example, you make a character more effective in fights that he doesn't care about. TROS is supposed to make it so that the player has a strong incentive to stay out of fights that the character has no interest in fighting for. Any of these rules can damage that incentive.

Mike