GM Melee styles

[Hugin]

I was watching the Brotherhood of the Wolf (again) recently and it got me thinking about the way melees are handled in different genres, and the way this would effect how a game like TRoS would feel.

There's the usual "Conan" style where the lone hero is rushed by a gang of thugs and dodges some while cutting up the others until all are fled or dead. All the bad guys are trying to launch an attack at the same time and the outcome tends to resemble a rugby scrum (americans - think of the NFL line of scrimmage battle) with swords. I suppose this is represented in TRoS by the hero's terrain rolls buying him time while he slaughters the opposition.

The movie above however uses a chinese martial arts style approach to combats where the bad guys ring the good guy who initially throws white and cooly waits until the bad guys move in. This they do, one per round (occasionally two glance at each other and charge in together). The hero usually defends the first exchange (to use the TRoS model) and winning that, beats down, injures or kills the bad guy. If the bad guy still lives, they might crawl away or, if not too badly hurt, will resume their place in the circle to come in again when they are ready.

Somtimes the hero might throw red or buy initiative and attempt to win the round in one exchange but still then usually waits for next onslaught.

I wondered if anyone had tried this approach with TRoS. I think it's a very visual style of melee and allows a hero (especially if pumped up with SAs) to face a whole gang of bad guys. Not the norm for TRoS. Terrain rolls might still be used but here they'd be used only if the fighting ground was dodgy.

Also this would still be dangerous for the hero because even small wounds might quickly begin to tell when the first few wounded opponents are still being replaced by fresh villains. And of course, if the hero is having too easy a time of it, the bad guys part and the pumped up villain of the moment might stride forward to show his men how it's done. And as Brotherhood of the Wolf showed, this style of melee choreography can work just as well for a western style melee as in the east.

I'm still setting up a TRoS campaign so haven't tried this. If anyone has, I'd love to know how it went.

Dave

[Gary_Bingham]

I would say first off that TROS is probably not the system to model the cinematic style you mention. The realistic approach that TROS takes makes fighting against multiple opponents very difficult.

A combatant will have to split his dice pool between targets and there are also dice penalties when facing multiple opponents. And also fatigue would start to play a major part in such battles.

Sorry i cannot give a more comprehensive response to your post but I do not have my rulebook handy. If no1 else picks up on this thread I will do so later.

[Ingenious]

Well, if you are looking for a cinematic style of combat while using TROS's combat system... modify it. Take those penalties for fighting multiple opponents and cut it in half... or do away with it completely. Make terrain rolls easier.
Another example of aforementioned style of play is the movie The Last Samurai, where Tom Cruise's character is surrounded and he is unarmed... they circle him, and he wipes the floor with them. That had to deal more with his training and his agility though, so you might look to use defensive manouvers such as duck n weave, partial evasion, and full evasion.. and make those moves easier to accomplish. Combine either of those with the 'acrobatics' skill and it would be even more feasable with the core system. Endurance might play a role if you were in plate armor, but if you were in chain or leather.. it wouldn't be that major.. also having a sizeable endurance score would be helpful for that.

Now then, regarding the combat itself... maybe if one of the 'bad guys' received a level 3 wound, they would be out of the fight to tend to their wounds and such. I would recommend this because if I were in a situation and got hit for a level 3 wound(usually means broken bones, some bleeding, alot of pain) I wouldnt be wanting to fight anymore. If you are intending for the PC to always win these sorts of contests where his SA's are going ape-shit, then you can always cheat on rolls that you make when attacking him... possibly weaken him a bit(negating some of his SA's) and then throw the pumped up villain at him. This would make for a pretty even matchup I would imagine. It also makes the storyline a bit easier.

So there ya go, make the players think that they are doing very well in these fights, but weaken them slowly... allow them to dust off a few of the weaklings... and then bring on the pissed off leader.
But I would advise against using this example exclusively in every fight or even most of these situations... come up with some variations. Maybe in one fight the bad guys would cheat and have an archer shoot the guy that perhaps the hero did not see... but cheat on that attack roll to make sure the hero is not killed outright from one shot... have it shoot him in the leg or arm or something.

And then you could just completely disregard my suggestions, that's fine too.
-Ingenious

[Hugin]

Thanks for the replies people.

I was thinking more along the lines that this approach to fight choreography could work even in such a dangerous game as TRoS because although surrounded by a half dozen foes, the hero would effectively only be fighting one per round as they dashed in to attack (or if two attacked together, the CP would only be split between two foes).

It's highly stylised and would probably have to be agreed with the players beforehand as being a specific genre game, so they know what to expect. I'd also expect lots of posturing (and what Ron Edwards calls Ego Assertion in Sorcerer and Sword).

Are you suggesting that the hero's CP is split between multiple opponents even if they aren't attacking this particular round? The original idea would allow a hero to fight a lot of foes but not if those on the periphery were all counted too.

Dave

[Lance D. Allen]

This would work, if the Seneschal wanted to run it that way. It's not the smartest way for a group to take out a single opponent, but if it's the cinematic style you want, it would work out easily enough..

And no, you don't have to split your CP for opponents you're not engaging, though it's not necessarily a bad idea to hold back, just in case someone does rush you on your second exchange with the first opponent.

[Mike Holmes]

I think the other two above missed your assertion. But, I think that, if everyone understands the idea that it's perfectly fine to do the one at a time thing. OTOH, even in those styles, occasionally the protagonist has to kick two guy's asses at once. I'd say that when replacing a mook roll a d10. If it comes up 9-10, then he has to face two at once.

The one unanswered question regards the effect on PCs. Can PCs gang up on somebody, or must they, too, wait their turn.

Oh, one thing that occurs to me is that the bad guys often "cycle in and out" of combats. To simulate this, if any mook gets hit and looses dice temporarily, they are automatically replaced by a fresh mook. No need to evade or anything. This balances things out a little, making things slightly more dangerous for the PC, as well as matching the genre that you're trying to emulate.

Mike

P.S. this may be like the movie Conan, a little, but nothing like the book Conan who wisely runs when facing gangs of mooks. That can be emulated better with the normal evasion and terrain rules, IMO. In fact lots of Conan is just him running from stuff, now that I think of it.

[kenjib]

Did that style of film fighting start with Enter the Dragon or is it older than that?  It actually made some small amount of sense in that movie as, since it was a school, all of the various combatants might have had honor on the line.  However, if indeed this is the scene that has been copied repeatedly thereafter, the context which made it at least marginally plausible is not always copied along with it...

[Hugin]

Thanks Mike, good points.

... occasionally the protagonist has to kick two guy's asses at once. I'd say that when replacing a mook roll a d10. If it comes up 9-10, then he has to face two at once. ]

I think I'd prefer this to be GMs fiat rather than a dice roll, so if the hero is having too easy a time of it, or things are getting a little boring, two rush in at once, or even three - the player isn't to know these happen to be the runts of the gang :)

[The one unanswered question regards the effect on PCs. Can PCs gang up on somebody, or must they, too, wait their turn. ]

Given the genre style, I'd expect heros to wait their turn or say "this one's mine" or somesuch. This is where the GM would have to ensure the players are in-genre too.

[Oh, one thing that occurs to me is that the bad guys often "cycle in and out" of combats. To simulate this, if any mook gets hit and looses dice temporarily, they are automatically replaced by a fresh mook. No need to evade or anything. This balances things out a little, making things slightly more dangerous for the PC, as well as matching the genre that you're trying to emulate. ]

This sounds good.


[P.S. this may be like the movie Conan, a little, but nothing like the book Conan who wisely runs when facing gangs of mooks. That can be emulated better with the normal evasion and terrain rules, IMO. In fact lots of Conan is just him running from stuff, now that I think of it.]

Very true.

Dave

[contracycle]

I kinda think this "chinese style" is just an artistic device.  Jackie Chan uses this sort of thing so he can have his mooks grunt and call before they go and thus provide cues.  In eastern martial arts, where this is a form of kata, its not presumed that the enemy are deliberately waiting, but to teach how to respond to a series of attacks from multiple opponents and directsions: that is, the whole thing is scripted and everyone knows the sequence.

[Hugin]

I kinda think this "chinese style" is just an artistic device.  Jackie Chan uses this sort of thing so he can have his mooks grunt and call before they go and thus provide cues.  In eastern martial arts, where this is a form of kata, its not presumed that the enemy are deliberately waiting, but to teach how to respond to a series of attacks from multiple opponents and directsions: that is, the whole thing is scripted and everyone knows the sequence.

I'm sure you're right but then this isn't supposed to represent reality as such but is a way of presenting a melee in a form that fits a particular genre. Not realistic martial arts practice but the way scenes work in a movie.

It's rather like the players in Victory Games' old 007 rpg accepting that at certain times they WILL be captured - they've got to be in order that the villain can reveal the plot. When the players figure this out, they tended to get into the swing of things so much better (and stopped fighting to the death all the time).

Dave