AJ's post of several weeks ago about a new system for martial arts has really got me thinking about alternative ways to run combat. Her suggestion was that instead of rolling to hit, one should only roll to defend, as hitting in close combat is pretty much assured for any competent fighter.

I got to thinking about that and it inspired me with the following idea:

First of all, instead of a system of initiative, every round of combat would only be a few seconds long and everyone's actions take place at the same time. Instead of rolling for attack or defense, characters locked in combat would both roll their combat skill, declaring what their goal was. Whoever rolled higher wins that round of combat, realizing their goal.

That's the simplest, bare bones version. I forsee there being much more customization. For instance, I would imagine that Players have a list of Actions they can take, which can modify their roll or create different effects. A simple attack would be an action, as would a movement. A player might chose to execute a feint, however, for her action; meaning that she still rolls her combat skill, but does no damage if she wins, instead setting up a bonus for herself to attack next round. A person might chose to take their move action for the round, placing them out of range of their opponent's hand to hand attack... but also moving out of range of their own ability to strike, as well.

Combat in this system would seem to me to be much more visceral and fast paced; a real head to head kind of fight. If two people ganged up on the same target, that target would only be rolling to attack one of those characters, meaning they get no defense (other than armor) against the other attack. Alternatively, they could chose to have their roll apply against both as a Full Defense, but they'd do no damage if they won the contest.

What do y'all think? Does this system sound realistic? Do-able? Been done?

Thanks,
John

Sounds like an interesting idea. I foresee one major problem, and maybe this is only my own line of thinking but I've noticed that in roleplaying games, people tend to go with what works to win a contest. In other words, if the Bastard Sword is the best weapon in the game, and slashing it vanilla over and over gives them the best chance of winning, few people will stray from grabbing a bastard sword and slashing. This relates to your system in that if two contestants were both trying to roll a contest to see whose action succeeded, there would need to be some variable difficulty. If both are standing and one guy wants to punch the other to the body, not particularly difficult, and the other would like to get the other person in a submission hold, significantly more difficult. It would have to be more difficult for them to aheieve in the contest. That said, if there is a variable difficulty, I could easily foresee people consistently doing the more efficient actions in the game and not really trying things that are more cinematic or interesting because if they choke down the higher difficulty actions, they're more likely to get pummeled. This may be in some respects more realistic, but it doesn't necessarily simulate the sort of combat I think you are trying for.

Other than that I like the idea, if you could somehow solve that problem, perhaps through allowing for a relatively balanced and detailed chain of events that a person can go through to get to the cooler effects, I'm not sure. Keep at it and good luck.

Why are they fighting? What are they fighting over?

Hey John,

Would you like to give us a 'script' for how you see a couple of rounds of fighting going using this system? Just make something up - say three gladiators fighting in an arena.

I think that'd help me see what's going on here.

Sovem wrote:
First of all, instead of a system of initiative, every round of combat would only be a few seconds long and everyone's actions take place at the same time. Instead of rolling for attack or defense, characters locked in combat would both roll their combat skill, declaring what their goal was. Whoever rolled higher wins that round of combat, realizing their goal.

Noclue wrote:

Sovem wrote:
First of all, instead of a system of initiative, every round of combat would only be a few seconds long and everyone's actions take place at the same time. Instead of rolling for attack or defense, characters locked in combat would both roll their combat skill, declaring what their goal was. Whoever rolled higher wins that round of combat, realizing their goal.

This part sounded like something that might be interesting and new. The rest of the post took the edge off it.

I think some more meat needs to be added here as I don't see how difficulty is taken into account.
If I had three people in a fight and each state what they're going to do:

Player #1. Punch player #2.
Player #2. Kick player #3.
Player #3. Be a whirling bundle of legs and arms and hit both the other players with massive boots to the head!

They all roll initiative and the one with the highest value wins. How will you make up for the fact that Player #3 is attempting something very difficult?

Well, when I talked about the different Actions applying different modifiers or effects, I was talking about that variable difficulty y'all are refering to. So, while a simple attack with a weapon is nothing more than a strait roll of your skill, that's just the most basic type of action. Say your fighting against a guy who's obviously better than you, in that he keeps winning the contest of skill and you can't get a hit in edgewise. You might chose to take a Berserk Attack option, which would cause your roll to be considered lower for purposes of defense, but cause it to be considered higher for purposes of attack--you would both end up hitting each other at the same time, but who cares, because he was probably going to hit you anyway, right?

Let's see if I can answer some more specific questions...

Brainwipe: First of all, in the system I'm proposing, there would be no roll of initiative. All their actions would occur simultaneously. Also, unless there was some sort of sneak attack involved, all three would know at the beginning of the round that they're within striking distance of the other two, and would probably opt for something more defensive until a clear window of opportunity opened up. But, assuming they're all badasses and decide to go for it anyway, knowing that if they attack one the other could get a free shot at them, Players 1 & 2 would just roll their attacks as normal. Player 1 would get his attack off successfully, damaging #2. #3 would obviously be some sort of advanced fighter with some sort of feat or specialty that lets him attack more than one person at a time, per your description. In which case, I don't know what his defense would be--that's obviously advanced mechanics, and I'm just focusing on bare bones. But, making up something on the spot... say, a Whirling Dervish skill that lets you attack anyone within range, but forfits your defense. That would mean that Player 2 also hits. Player 3 must now compare his roll against Player 2's, who still gets his defense. If he rolled higher, he hits him, if not, he doesn't. Nevertheless, he will at least hit Player 1, who attacked #2 and left himself open.

VoidDragon: I think I answered your question already? There will definately be bonuses/penalties/different effects for different kinds of attacks. As for making feints part of the description, that's certainly a fine idea. In my system, though, I like the idea of making a "social attack" for a feint; success means you get a bonus next round to a normal attack.

Noclue: Your first sentence sounded like it was going to be helpful, but the second kinda took the edge off it. Mind elaborating?

Hix: was brainwipe's example enough, or did you want more?

Callan: because they can't solve their differences through diplomacy.

Justin: Isn't that the problem with any game--players find what their character does best and just does that over and over? By having different Actions characters can take, I was actually hoping of avoiding that rut of "I swing my sword. I swing my sword. I swing my sword..."

The point I made in Callan's thread applies here: don't take DnD as an example. DnD is static. "Vanilla Swipe" is always best.

Ever play Soul Calibur? It works like this :

P1 : I charge!
P2 : I thrust! That's the best answer!
P1 : I start dodging side to side! Your thrust can't hit me!
P2 : I swipe horizontally! That's the best answer now!

If the terms of combat are constantly changing, it's worth paying attention, unlike DnD or every computerized fantasy rpg. You could even (easily), make a system where the constantly-changing "best answer" is not at all obvious, and is in fact totally disputable.

If the combat actions are not closely defined (i.e. a list of maneuvers that can only vary in Color), you have to give someone the authority to assign bonuses and penalties. It doesn't have to be the same person all the time.

Well I was merely suggesting, and this is because I happen to be trying to create a comabt system that works better than mainstream games systems myself, that perhaps you could provide some rules based impotus for actions that are cool.

But here's something I'm confused on. Ok so you attack, but you hit automatically. So like we were saying, how is there variable difficulty? So the tradeoff is that you may lose defense or void some advantage, but it's still no more difficult to flick a person than to do a spinning heel kick. Obviously this could be remedied by making difficult maneuvers easier to defend against, but there you run even more into the problem of people using the same attacks again and again, because the cool attacks are so easy to defend against.

It's a matter of design goals. If you make a system where punching over and over wins the fight, but doing a Crescent kick gets you knocked on your ass, you can't blame people for punching. They are not at fault for doing what will allow them to succeed at a task. I'm not saying that is how your system will invariably turn out, but because you have a good idea, I think you should keep in mind the danger of having a kickass combat system that people barely use for more than a bit of sport when they're ahead.

Sovem wrote:
I think I answered your question already? There will definately be bonuses/penalties/different effects for different kinds of attacks. As for making feints part of the description, that's certainly a fine idea. In my system, though, I like the idea of making a "social attack" for a feint; success means you get a bonus next round to a normal attack.

VoidDragon wrote:
As far as skill being irrelevant in hitting; I'd have to disagree.  Especially in the case of two experienced fighters, an attacker's skill is very important in determining whether (s)he is able to hit a defensive opponent at all.  In the martial arts, there's often a thin line between a feint and a stinger.  Take the flow of a sparring match, for instance.  Sometimes a feint comes so instinctively that it might not even be considered a conscious decision to feint on the part of the attacker.

Sovem wrote: Callan: because they can't solve their differences through diplomacy.

Callan wrote:

Sovem wrote: Callan: because they can't solve their differences through diplomacy.

And how does combat resolve what diplomacy couldn't?

I'm trying to help - any elaboration of system here should involve resolving what diplomacy couldn't. Too often in RPG, elaboration of system just tacks on extra moves like fuzzy dice or go fast stripes added on a car, when really you want to add a super charger to the engine!

Noclue wrote:
My understanding of the original post was that an attack will always hit, unless the defender defends. So, you can basically always hit someone who stands still and does not put up a guard. The reason you need skill in the attack is because of the defenders skill at defending.

The logic does not work so good at distance. You can not always hit someone with an arrow who is not defending. Sometimes you just miss. Distance magnifies the effects of small errors from poor spatial judgement, tremors, wind sheer, etc.

Noclue wrote:
My understanding of the original post was that an attack will always hit, unless the defender defends. So, you can basically always hit someone who stands still and does not put up a guard. The reason you need skill in the attack is because of the defenders skill at defending.

Sovem wrote:
Noclue: Your first sentence sounded like it was going to be helpful, but the second kinda took the edge off it. Mind elaborating?

Justin wrote: Callan, it seems like you're saying something but I have absolutely no idea what exactly it is. This isn't an insult, but could you try to be a little less arcane in your responses. What exactly does it matter the intentions behind the combat. That's left up to the players etc. The point is not why or when combat will happen, but that it has and a system should be in place to accomodate the outcome, unless I'm simply too befuddled to understand what you're saying.

VoidDragon wrote:
  It may tend to be represented as a number added to the attack roll, but in this case, it might just be applied as a number subtracted from the defense (roll). 

I think you can go a long way toward designing a whole game by designing combat mechanics in isolation, becuase so many boardgames are just representations of combat.  They can work on their own level without necessarily being full-blown RPG's.  And you may, in the course of discussing mechanical ideas, also come across some device that cries out to be realised in some broader RPG context.

One of the issues around systems which employ a loose initiative structure such that players choose freely when to act, is that nobody chooses to act.  It would seem to me resolving that would require addressing gamnetime beyond the immediate combatants in someway, so that events compel action, force decisions, and circling forever is not optimal.  From that problem, we might then construct a solution, such as the fight taking place in a Roman arena, where cowardly circling may turn the crowd against you and result in your ultimate demise, or amidst Indiana Jones style collapsing architecture, giving you other places to be in a hurry.

contracycle wrote:
One of the issues around systems which employ a loose initiative structure such that players choose freely when to act, is that nobody chooses to act. 

Well then the problem may appear in declaration, for the simple reason that only one person gets to speak at a time, and any subsequent speaker may then react to prior statements.  Initiative among the real players can be more important than among the characters.

I mean the way to examine that would be for you to describe a series of interactions as you envison them occurring; at the moment I do not see where declaration occurs.

The resolution of who hits whom will be the easiest thing to mechanise, the meat will all lie in the order of action.

Sovem wrote:
If a player doesn't want to act first, that's fine. Let them be known in game as a coward or wise, depending. Although, in a game where attack and defense happen in the same roll, I'm not really sure why someone would be afraid of acting?

As far as players getting hung up on who acts first, I was a little concerned about that at first, but other games I've played without initiative, like Wushu, seem to have gone fine without any hitches. Players were respectful, allowing each other to take turns describing their actions and working their own actions off of other's. I'm hoping it will be the same with this game.

Since you're going for a vastly simplified rolling mechanic with a great deal of expressed sympathy for situational modifiers determining degrees of attack and defense... I think what would be best to start this fledgling system out on a high note is a stream-lining of what is possible during combat actions.

For example, while ignoring initiative is fine and perhaps even fantastic, some players will wish to flavor their characters as being "fast and light on his feet" or "slower, but more powerful" or any number of other possibilities.  Rather than thinking up a sheaf of rules to govern these different ideas, perhaps you could unify things a bit by saying that during combat one may choose to spread out their emphasis over several areas of combat ability such as:

Speed-this is useful if the character is trying to cripple his opponents before they can act, use one to block another, disarm, evade, etc.  Any action where it would be essential to move first.  Or...

Power-good for high damage probability, though over-emphasizing it will lead to more misses than hits.  Still, if it does hit, it should be worth it.  Anything involving attempts to stun or stagger opponents could fall under this focus.

Accuracy-maybe a character has a poisoned weapon or a taser, but for whatever reason, inflicting raw damage is less an issue than being certain to connect.  Also, great for hitting specific targets for special effects.

Defense-naturally, this is a priority for anyone expecting to survive the fight, or go more than a couple of rounds.  Plus, it can be done in a multitude of fashions from simply taking the hit to skillfully parrying or just outright dodging.

Why these four?  Well, why not?  Each has the potential to give its own specific options to a combat action and if one decides to rank them in order of performance one can perhaps get a partial success.  Say Mr. Aa and Sir Bb are going at it and Mr. Aa decides to focus primarily on Power, followed by Accuracy, Defense and Speed.  Mr. Aa wants to do copious amounts of damage, first and foremost, not minding too much if he is hit back and caring even less if he hits first.  Sir Bb, on the other hand, doesn't really want to hurt his opponent at all; he focuses on Defense, then Speed, Accuracy and finally Power, hoping he can embarass Mr. Aa by anticipating his moves and easily defending against them while giving him a few love taps in return (with his rapier, let's say).

In this scenario, the roll is really all that matters and will determine who meets his goals, but if Mr. Aa succeeds amazingly well, he'll not only powerfully hit, but he'll also manage to defend himself and even get the first move in.  Say you want to downplay a certain one of these four traits... go for it!  Mr. Aa completely ignores his Speed, thus making his probability of accomplishing his other goals that much higher!  Likewise, Sir Bb could disregard damage entirely, going entirely for the insult factor.

So assuming I haven't already sent you to nap-land, we come to difficulty, which to me is the fun part.  Let's say for the sake of argument you're using a single d20 modified by a combat aptitude numeral.  You could say that your order of priorities has an analogue, such as 1-5 for defense, 6-10 for speed, 11-15 for accuracy and 16-20 for power (the former Sir Bb example), so the higher you roll the more of your priorities you meet if you win the combat round.  Say Sir Bb has a +5 modifier and rolls a 16 on his die for a total of 21, pretty spiffy.  This allows him to meet all of his goals and even deal damage to Mr. Aa whose roll only netted a 5 (he has crappy stats and worse luck).  Here you'd subtract the loser's attack roll from the winners to determine which affects he managed to carry out.  Fulfilling these tasks would be a lot easier if the player resigned his character to two out of four, right?  One could do something very similar with a multiple dice mechanic such as d10s or d6s, allowing for multiple successes to net multiple effects.  Maybe you could throw in a rule to allow one of the priorities as a given in the case of success, I don't know I'm really tired and this is all off the top of my head.

Anywho, do you think this would be simpler or more useful for your purposes than a (seemingly) random assortment of modifier rules?  If so, please steal my model and improve upon it, by all means; or ask me or the others how to reconcile it with your own vision.  I hope to hear more on this.

Wow... that's a really fantastic idea, actually. It's cool because right now we're talking about a "4-point system," which I intend to post on here when we iron it out a bit more. It's basically about having 4 "points" each round that you can assign to different things; a regular attack would cost 2 points, a regular defense would cost 2, so the most vanilla action you could take would be a simple swing and a dodge. But if you wanted to get more complicated, you would start to sacrifice offense or defense to accomplish those goals.

I don't want to go into too much detail now, but it seems like your suggestion of Power, Speed, Defense, and Accuracy might mesh quite well with our idea of the 4 points... give me a little bit to mash it together and see what we come up with.

Hi John,

I'm still trying to get a clear picture of how an exchange could go in this system. I've tried to pull together a list of questions from everyone's comments (based on Brainwipe's example).

In that script I was asking about, these are some of the questions I'm interested in. As for the logic behind why I'm asking for a script, I'm not sure if you've read the Structured Game Design thread, but I've found it a useful technique to visualise the games I've been working on.

After all that, I've asked some bigger questions - because I'm still not sure what you're trying to do here

--- HOW DOES AN EXCHANGE PLAY OUT?

Is there any narration about the situation each exchange starts in?
Is there room for players to negotiate with each other about who their characters will target?

Do you make secret declarations about your actions?
Do you adjust your combat priorities before each round ((Power, Accuracy, Defense, Speed, for instance)?

Can you use the environment to affect your effectiveness in combat?

Each player declares their actions ...
Player #1. Punch player #2.
Player #2. Kick player #3.
Player #3. Be a whirling bundle of legs and arms and hit both the other players with massive boots to the head!

Can you target more than one person at a time?
Do you think there's even a limited list of Actions to choose from, or is it all far more generic (Power, Accuracy, Defense, Speed)?

Do you reveal declarations and work out who's targetting who?

Do you adjust the difficulty level of your Action, based on declarations?
Is there a GM to adjudicate difficulty levels?

Do characters get bonuses based on 'why' they're fighting? For example, if something's particularly important to them, does the system give them an advantage?

Do you roll?
It looks like you do, so how is that roll modified by your combat score?
What happens if two dice rolls tie?

What effect does success have?
Do you take damage?
Can you be prevented from participating in the next round?
Can you be killed?

If PC 2 hits PC3, can PC 2 then defend against PC 1 (in the same exchange)?

Do you get any rewards from fighting if you win? Do you get any rewards if you lose?
Do you get stronger from taking damage?

--- BIGGER PICTURE QUESTIONS

Does fighting have any consequences in the rest of the game?

What are your intentions for this idea? Are you just jamming around with it to see what comes up? Are you thinking of developing it further? Is this more of a card game than a RPG?

Do you have a game setting or situation in mind that this combat system takes place in?

If so:
- what is your game about?
- how is it about that?
- how does it reward that?

---

I like how you're developing the system, John. Please consider these as thinking points and ideas to throw into the mix.

hix wrote:
--- HOW DOES AN EXCHANGE PLAY OUT?

Is there any narration about the situation each exchange starts in?
Is there room for players to negotiate with each other about who their characters will target?

Do you make secret declarations about your actions?
Do you adjust your combat priorities before each round ((Power, Accuracy, Defense, Speed, for instance)?

Can you use the environment to affect your effectiveness in combat?

Each player declares their actions ...
Player #1. Punch player #2.
Player #2. Kick player #3.
Player #3. Be a whirling bundle of legs and arms and hit both the other players with massive boots to the head!

Can you target more than one person at a time?

Do you think there's even a limited list of Actions to choose from, or is it all far more generic (Power, Accuracy, Defense, Speed)?

Do you reveal declarations and work out who's targetting who?

Do you adjust the difficulty level of your Action, based on declarations?
Is there a GM to adjudicate difficulty levels?

Do characters get bonuses based on 'why' they're fighting? For example, if something's particularly important to them, does the system give them an advantage?

Do you roll?
It looks like you do, so how is that roll modified by your combat score?
What happens if two dice rolls tie?

What effect does success have?
Do you take damage?
Can you be prevented from participating in the next round?
Can you be killed?

If PC 2 hits PC3, can PC 2 then defend against PC 1 (in the same exchange)?

Do you get any rewards from fighting if you win? Do you get any rewards if you lose?
Do you get stronger from taking damage?

--- BIGGER PICTURE QUESTIONS

Does fighting have any consequences in the rest of the game?

What are your intentions for this idea? Are you just jamming around with it to see what comes up? Are you thinking of developing it further? Is this more of a card game than a RPG?

Do you have a game setting or situation in mind that this combat system takes place in?

Thanks for the answers, John.

the Divinity Horizons Power 19 wrote: Characters are to become the legendary heroes (or, if it suits your troupe better, villains) of this world. They are the Achilles, Odysseuses, and Beowulfs--except with the power of the gods. At first, characters will make names for themselves slaying monsters, fighting for one nation or another, and defeating rival Amalga (thus, taking said Amalga's power).

hix wrote:
Divinity Horizons sounds fun.

What is it about this combat system that you particularly like for creating this epic power-level style of fighting?

Your 4-point system is a turn down my favored path.

Regarding your confusion to our earlier suggestions : the simple answer is that the combatant's strengths and weaknesses are constantly changing throughout the combat, that each character can to a large degree redefine his strengths and weaknesses throughout the combat.

Pick a genre and I'll give you all the examples you want. I guess you haven't played Soul Calibur. Let's go with good old DnD. Suppose you are a well-rounded fighter. You have three magic items : a ring of +20 STR, a ring of +20 DEX and a ring of +20 WIS. You can wear only one at a time.

If you take off the ring of STR, and put on the ring of DEX, the archer will stop trying to shoot you and the fighter will come grapple you, but if you put on the ring of WIS the mage won't be able to beguile you. You can't do everything at once, so you've got to choose what looks best for the situation, and for what you want to accomplish. (And who can tell what the optimal next move is?)

The enemy fighter just took off his ring of STR and put on his ring of DEX, so our archer can't hit him anymore! Should I put on my ring of STR and strangle him, or put on my ring of WIS and charge the mage?

Ordinary DnD is static. Strengths and weaknesses are set in stone during the leveling process. You meet an enemy, assess his weakness, and kill him. No strategy there. Just multiple choice.

Sorry I haven't responded; your example made what you were talking about a lot clearer to me, but now we're having a debate about what system to use. My co-creator (who also happens to be my wife) absolutely hates d20, and I can't make this game without her help. So now we're tossing some ideas around about a new system which I'll expound on here when we're done.

In the meantime, I like this idea of ever shifting advantages and disadvantages. Without getting into numbers and specifics, is there a way we can expound on that idea? Besides switching magic rings (which I know was just an example), how might the tide of advantage shift during a battle?

Yes, let's forget about mathematical specifics. Let's do.

Here's what I like to do : Just write a story where some heroes win an awesome battle. Why did they win instead of lose? What actions did they take, what did they pay attention to, what did they prioritize? Was it a simple matter of bringing a gun to a swordfight? Did they just get lucky? Or did they make hugely substantial choices in what could have just as easily been a crushing defeat? How did they work as a team? What opportunities did they seize? What could have happened to make them lose?

Now - don't you want your game to be EXACTLY LIKE THAT? Well why the hell can't it be! Think about how the two sides try to get the edge on one another, to make the most of their strengths and cover their weaknesses. How do they try to outguess one another ("I bet that archer's gonna wanna get up on that rock!") and how do they react to one another?

Don't even THINK about numbers or dice. Just think about what cool stuff you want to happen.