Too many calculations, die rolls, and chart-lookups!  Help!

Desired Inputs:
Player's preference of where to move to (if applicable) + character's ability to maneuver as dictated by surroundings.
Player's preference of where to hit opponent (only relevant if hitting).
Player's preference of offense vs defense.
Character's skill in weapon.
Character's Agility attribute.
Character's Toughness attribute (only relevant if damaged).
Character's current level of Shock (only relevant if damaged).
Character's current physical wounds (only relevant if damaged).
What kind of armor the character is wearing (including shields) on what body parts (only relevant if hit).
Character's weapon type (only relevant if hitting).
All of the above for the opponent.

Desired Outputs:
It hit you or missed you.
It hit you in location A (only relevant if hitting).
It did/didn't get through your armor (only relevant if hitting).
It did B damage to you (only relevant if dealing damage).
The damage has/hasn't destroyed location A (only relevant if dealing damage).
You take C amount of Shock (only relevant if dealing damage).
The damage has/hasn't dropped you (only relevant if taking shock).
It now is/isn't where it wanted to move to.
All of the above for your attack & movement.

Current Mechanics:

PRE-COMBAT

GM says, "Next round."
PCs declare actions
lowest AGL declares first
Non-combat movement is resolved and considered to be in progress
highest AGL acts first
Missile attacks are resolved
Combat maneuvers are resolved, dictating what positions will be at end of round; change of positions is considered to be in progress

COMBAT

(GM figures out action order)
longest weapons go first, ties act simultaneously

players specify where "location 7" hits will land by placing 1d8 (color 1)
players specify where "location 8" hits will land by placing 1d8 (color 2)

(GM calculates PCs' and enemies' target numbers)
these are based on weapon skill, AGL, offense/defense preference, shields, + any positional/circumstantial modifiers for each attacker and defender per attack

players roll to hit on 2d6 (color 1)
players with adds* to hit, roll 1d6 (color 2)
players with adds to defend, roll 1d6 (color 3)
players roll for hit location on 1d8 (color 3)

(GM rolls for enemies to hit
if necessary, GM:
rolls enemy adds
rolls enemy location dice
chooses "7" and "8" locations
GM determines which enemies hit, where, and for how much damage
GM looks at players' dice and determines who hit, where, and for how much damage)

GM announces who hit and who got hit, and where

players tells GM whether they were hit on armored or unarmored locations**

GM tells players hit on unarmored locations how much damage they take

GM tells players hit on armored locations their enemies' weapon type

players hit on armored locations consult the "weapon type vs armor type" chart and roll armor on the appropriate number of d6

(GM rolls armor for enemies who got hit on armored locations
GM determines how much damage enemies receive & whether this destroys any body parts
GM looks at player armor rolls and determines how much damage PCs receive)

GM announces whose hits on enemies got past armor, and roughly how deeply

GM announces how much damage armored players take, players determine if this destroys any body parts

players make TUF rolls to soak SHK, then determine if this renders them unconscious or dead

(GM makes enemies' TUF rolls to soak SHK, then determine if this renders them unconscious or dead)

POST-COMBAT

Non-combat non-movement actions are resolved
highest AGL goes first

Locations of moving and maneuvering characters are resolved
highest AGL goes first

*minute differences in effectiveness are represented by extra dice called "adds"
**sometimes rolling an extra die to determine this, in odd cases like where "Left Leg" includes an armored shin and unarmored thigh.

First, what is the combat in your game about?

Second, drop anything that isn't important to and doesn't relate to that.

D&D, for example, is only interested in wether you hit and how much damage you do. So, Attack + d20 versus AC, then NdX damage roll. (I'm ignoring feats. They are kinda badly designed, anyway)

Combat in my game is about two things:
1) resolving "what happens" in a way that takes into accout all the relevant factors from real-world combat, including those things a combatant can control.  Thus my Desired Inputs.
2) resolving "what happens" in a way that describes what the outcome looks like within the gameworld in terms of all the relevant factors.  Thus my Desired Outputs.

Oh, and combat in my game is also about not dying quite as quickly as you would in the real world, thus the Shock mechanic.

I don't intend to re-evaluate my inputs and outputs here, I just want a better method of getting from one to the other.

Hi David,

I think handling time is an issue of how much you deal with something that's fun. Lets say a game was about furry fighters. I don't like furries and you probably don't either - that's why I'm using it as an example, so we can look at fun from an outside perspective.

Lets say there's two resolution methods:
A: a single attack takes three minutes to resolve, but every chart look up and dice roll is soaked in furry stuff - all that furry crap is just all over the charts.
B: a single attack takes twenty seconds to resolve, but has no furry fighter references at all - it's just cold, plain numbers.

That twenty seconds, although it's faster, sucks. It's like an ratio - a fun over time ratio. B has a very poor fun over time ratio. While A has a very good ratio.

Really you can't improve the ratio until you know what the fun thing about your game is. Clearly it's not furries - it might be one main idea, or several related ideas. I think that's what Narf was asking - what's the fun thing about your game? Is the fun finding out "what happens"? If it is, you might have a very good ratio already!

Ah, okay, I see how this looks nonsensical.  "My combat system is about determining what happens, and it does this perfectly, and the perfection is not enjoyable!" 

In isolation, indeed, I am quite happy with the combat system.  What I am not happy with is what happens when I use this combat system in my game which strives for a sense of "feeling like you're really there".  Too much mechanics-consulting per unit of established imaginary content breaks that feeling for me. 

"His club is a bashing weapon, my chest is covered with plate armor.  Plate armor vs bashing weapon equals 2d6.  Roll!  Okay, my armor took 3 points of the blow's damage," is just too much mental energy directed at categories, charts and dice for something that occupies a millisecond of in-game time.

To clarify: if I had to choose between "factors in armor & weapon types" and "requires one less chart consultation and die roll", I'd choose the former.  Which is why my combat system is the way it is right now.  What I'm hoping, however, is to have my cake and eat it too.  I want some analog of "throwing my desired inputs into a supercomputer and having it instantly spit back the desired outputs!" to replace my "roll, roll, roll again".

David wrote:
Combat in my game is about two things:
1) resolving "what happens" in a way that takes into accout all the relevant factors from real-world combat, including those things a combatant can control.  Thus my Desired Inputs.
2) resolving "what happens" in a way that describes what the outcome looks like within the gameworld in terms of all the relevant factors.  Thus my Desired Outputs.

I don't intend to re-evaluate my inputs and outputs here, I just want a better method of getting from one to the other.

David wrote:
Ah, okay, I see how this looks nonsensical.  "My combat system is about determining what happens, and it does this perfectly, and the perfection is not enjoyable!"

Hi!
  I had a similar snafu in my game. I decided to remove a lot of details (like hit location) and combine as much as possible into one roll. You could do something similar, like this maybe:
Roll + Agility + Skill + + Weapon Modifier + Move Modifier + Hit Location Modifier + Offensive Effort Modifier - Attacker Shock/Wound Modifier - Attacker's Armor Penalty - Target Agility - Target Skill - Target Toughness - Target Movement Modifier + Target's Shock/Wound Modifier - Target's Armor Defense Bonus +/- Conditional Modifiers vs Target Number. Where anything over the TN is Damage that got through to the hit location specified...

Or You could have both the attacker and defender roll something like:
Roll + Agility + Skill + Weapon Modifier + Move Modifier + Hit Location Modifier + Offensive Effort Modifier - Attacker Shock/Wound Modifier - Attacker's Armor Penalty +/- Conditional Modifiers
vs
Roll + Target Agility - Target Skill - Target Toughness - Target Movement Modifier + Target's Shock/Wound Modifier - Target's Armor Defense Bonus +/- Conditional Modifiers vs Target Number.
  Where every point the attacker beats the defender by equals damage that got through to the hit location.

  If you want to differentiate between wounds/shock/special effects, have the attacker divide the points into those three categories based on a location or player preference. Like Shock cost one success point (points that you made the roll by), Wounds cost 3 and special effects cost depending on a table, maybe temporary blinding costs 6 permanent blinding costs 12, etc... Or you could just have the success number subtract directly from the target's Agility and/or toughness. That way Wounds, shock and hit points are cleverly combined into one score...

  The advantage of a system like this is that a lot of info can be pre-recorded on the char sheet and there are no wasted die rolls (you could put a slot next to each line for their weapons where it could have their attack total with and without armor, and a similar slot on the armor line of the char sheet for their defense roll).
  Also, it defeats the classic "d20 gotcha" where you roll a 19 to hit (a real good roll) but a 1 for damage (a real bad roll) that creates a sort of anti climactic result...

  Well, that is a long post. A lot of info. And I think I might have used some short hand for some of my ideas. So, if you have any questions or ideas how to tweak it, lemme know because I did a good solid year and a half of playtesting on a similar system (my own) and can give you some pointers...
  Good luck man!

I think you can cut the damage roll and inflict fixed damage numbers, as you have a soak roll that comes later to provide some variety.  In fact the randomness of the damage and the soak together might cancel each other and produce fairly constricted results.

Everyone, thanks for your comments!  I think we have a pretty well-shared idea of what's going on here.  Sadly, I cannot implement some of the suggestions I've received so far, for the following reasons:

I already do have damage determined by the to-hit roll.  My "current mechanics" list says "roll" wherever there's a roll.  For damage, it says, "determine" -- this reflects that the determination is based on a prior roll.  This may seem like a weird way to write it out, but I've chopped the list into the tiniest possible pieces, in order to illustrate not just the physical processes involved, but also the mental ones.

I do prize Mechanical Realism over Time Realism.  But like I said, I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too.  Anything I can do to improve Time Realism (even if I never achieve a super-high degree of it) would be great.

As for deciding what parts of "realism" are relevant, I want to model every aspect of the gameworld reality that reflects player decisions and achievements. 

• Achievements: if I stole a left greave off a dead goblin, there should be a chance that at some point I'll get hit in it and it'll save my leg.
• Decisions: if I try to circle around my opponent so that his back is to the pit of lava, I should be able to resolve whether or not this works.

(As for specifically "where I hit", I largely agree with James -- usually, you take what opening you get.  Thus, a d8 location roll has locations 1-6 predetermined, regardless of player preference.  Only a 7 or an 8 hits the locations you specifically targeted.  In practice, I find that getting to pick where you want to hit enemies is fun, even if you can't always actually do it.)

On to some specifics:
James, I see your point with the 5 parts you singled out being highly related, but I'm not sure how to use a smaller subset.  Getting your chest armor hit is not the same thing as getting your chest hit is not the same thing as having your chest destroyed (i.e., you dead) is not the same thing as dropping from accumulated injury (which is slightly unrealistic, but fun: you can sometimes lose a fight without losing a character).  Can you think of a more efficient mechanic that doesn't ditch any of these distinctions?

Dave, good point about pre-recording.  I'd forgotten my earlier intent to mark on character sheets how each piece of their armor behaves against all weapon types.  Opponents' weapon and armor types and characters' weapon types would go on the GM's stat list alongside the derived O & D values for every combatant.

As for letting attackers pick which of their damage points go where, that's simply too meta for me -- it doesn't correlate with anything I could be thinking if I'm standing here swinging a sword at you.

David wrote:
In isolation, indeed, I am quite happy with the combat system.  What I am not happy with is what happens when I use this combat system in my game which strives for a sense of "feeling like you're really there".  Too much mechanics-consulting per unit of established imaginary content breaks that feeling for me.

Callan wrote:
What actually establishes "feeling like you're really there" to begin with?

Aside from the great suggestions above, I would recommend you check out any "simulation"-oriented systems written by Greg Porter (of BTRC). CORPS and EABA are two good examples. It's amazing how many "inputs" he can cram into a very very quick simple mechanic. You might find some inspiration if you don't find a better approach through this conversation here.

Paul,
Thanks.  I checked out the free "lite" version of EABA and it does seem very efficient in a few ways:

• any time a specific number (2 points of damage taken) is correlated with a specific other number (-1 to AGL), that relationship is already written on the character sheet
• damage is tracked in boxes on the character sheet, with a slash meaning "non-lethal" and an X meaning "lethal"
• when one input can produce 2 outputs, that is done, rather than using 2 inputs (i.e. one damaging attack produces two rolls for the two damage types)

Not having played it, though, nothing else caught my notice...  I'm sure this system would be faster than mine, but it also produces less specific outcomes (i.e., no mention of hit location), and CORPS seems to do likewise.  Can you point out anything to me that I'm missing?

David,

I have a game called The Rustbelt with a complex combat system that used to take *forever*, so I simplified it.  Now it merely takes *almost forever*.  I can't really give you advice about your system, because I don't know what its components are, but I can tell you how I worked it out for my own game.

This is the solution that I came up with:

1. Attacker announces the attack and where he intends to hit (seriously, swinging wildly at someone is not how you fight; it's how you get killed.  You always target a specific area -- but you don't necessarily hit there).

2.  The "Attack Rating" is calculated:  Attacker's Performance minus Defender's Performance

Attacker's Performance = roll [d100, in my case] + skill - Performance penalties [losses of footing, situational awareness, nerve, and/or endurance, and Injury to any part of the body being used; tracked on a "Character Status Sheet"]
Defender's Performance = roll + skill [either "Brawl" used to block or dodge or a weapon skill used to parry] - Performance penalties

The Attack Rating is a percentage representation of how well it went, essentially.  If it's 0 or under that's a miss, if it's 100 then it's perfectly executed.  If it's over 100 then it hit somewhere especially nasty, a nerve cluster or artery or some other vulnerable point that would injure the defender more.

3.  Roll [d100 again; all my rolls are d100] for "Target Deviation" and consult the "Target Deviation Chart," indexing this roll with the Attack Rating and the intended target to see where the blow actually hits.  [if the Attack Rating was 100 or over, this is skipped]

4.  Subtract the "Armor Rating" at the hit location from the Attack Rating [because armor functions by either absorbing force or diverting it].  If this reduces the Attack Rating to zero or less, the armor has stopped the attack.

5.  Divide the new Attack Rating by 100 and multiply this number by the force behind the blow [derived from a Strength attribute and how much "oomph" you want to put into it].  Multiply the result by the weapon's "Attack Multiplier."  This result is the "Damage Potential."

6.  Modify "Damage Potential" by dividing it by the hit location's "Fortitude" [secondary attribute derived from a Constitution attribute and the hit location itself, written down on character sheet; represents how easily that area is injured.  For instance, the head, neck, and hands are easily injured, but the torso, arms, and legs are tougher, due to bone & muscle structure and locations of arteries, nerve clusters, and other vulnerable areas].  This result is the actual "Injury," expressed in terms of 1-100, with 1 being the mildest scratch and 100 being an catastrophic wound that renders the afflicted area entirely useless and mangled (and probably bleeds the character to death shortly).

7.  Apply changes to Performance Penalties (ex: Endurance is lost equal to amount of "oomph" used in attack; Footing is lost based on awkwardness of weapons and the Performance rolls; Awareness is lost when guns or explosives are used, or if the character becomes angry, confused, etc.; Nerve is lost at the sight of horrifying or disturbing things, including severe injuries and bleeding.  These 4 things are protected by "buffer values" equal to certain stats -- Constitution for Endurance, Dexterity for Footing, Cleverness for Awareness, Willpower for Nerve).

And there's a few other rules, like optional "Response Checks" (a roll against Response, a secondary attribute equal to the average of Agility, Cleverness, and Perception), which if successful can allow a defender to pre-empt an attack with something (diving out of the way of gunfire, or shooting someone in the hand before they can attack, using psychokinesis to redirect an attack, etc.).  (If a character is attacked from behind, he doesn't even get to Defend unless he can make a Response check), but that's the main flow of it.

I went with this method because there are only 3 total rolls involved, 1 chart, and all the math is simple arithmetic (more importantly, all the stats and factors are represented in terms of their actual numerical impact on the math, with everything tied to a percentage standard), yet it factors in a great deal of "realism."  Once the GM has enough practice at it, the players only have to say what their characters do and then roll once apiece, and the GM (aided by a calculator) can have the results in a minute, easy.

But what's appropriate for my game might be different from what's appropriate for your game.  I just hope that my system can give you some insight.

-Marshall

David wrote:

Callan wrote:
What actually establishes "feeling like you're really there" to begin with?

No, that's a great question.  I have a feeling, though, that the answers that come to mind are of the wrong class -- i.e., not covering it in a way that can be used for resolution.  Can you whittle down the "what" in "what actually establishes" to anything more specific?

First answers that come to mind:

• GM describing my character's sensory environment in detail
• having something interesting to do in the imaginary environment; this encourages me to investigate the environment further
• the GM answering all questions as if the answers are gameworld fact (as opposed to GM ad-lib)
• my fellow players playing characters that make sense within the setting
• my fellow players playing their characters consistently (as opposed to occasionally dropping some trait when it's inconvenient, thus reminding me "this is my buddy here")

The first point gets me most of the way to "really there"; the second gets me the rest of the way; and after that it's largely just a long-ass list of "dont's" in order to allow me to remain "really there" (provided Point #2 persists).

players roll to hit on 2d6 (color 1)
players with adds* to hit, roll 1d6 (color 2)
players with adds to defend, roll 1d6 (color 3)
players roll for hit location on 1d8 (color 3)
*snip*
players tells GM whether they were hit on armored or unarmored locations**
*snip*
players hit on armored locations consult the "weapon type vs armor type" chart and roll armor on the appropriate number of d6
*snip*
players make TUF rolls to soak SHK, then determine if this renders them unconscious or dead

Marshall,
Wow.  Now I seriously want to playtest your system.  That sounds fantastic.  Thinking through the steps in my head, it seems to me like it'd be just as slow as my system (not because of number of rolls, but because of number of mental operations), but I'd have to try it to find out. 

I've never seen a stat that measures how hard different body areas are to injure, and I've never seen target deviation used in melee combat.  I may get back to you with some questions after I've thought about this more.

Callan,
You are completely correct, I'd like to have the GM do as much of the work as possible, and let the players just make their decisions and see what happens. 

However, I think it's nice to see the "to-hit" rolls for two reasons:
1) to know the GM isn't fudging things.  I could just ask players to trust the GM, but I'd rather not, for reasons I can go into later if necessary.
2) to distinguish between "this is hard" and "I am unlucky".  A player rolling well on his attack and missing anyway nicely generates the in-game occurrence of, "What the hell, that was a great swing!  My opponent is fucking badass to have evaded it!"

It's also nice to see the "Shock soak" roll because:
1) same as reason (1) above, only moreso.  If someone's character is going to die, they need it proven to them that this is just "what would happen".  Same goes for not dying when they might have.

As for the other items you listed (location, armor, etc.), I think I'm fine with having the GM take over those responsibilities.  My main worry then is that, for the players, you replace immersion-breaking staring at numbers with immersion-breaking staring at the GM while the GM stares at numbers.  (Although, honestly, that is an improvement... it at least gives the players the option to remain focused in-game, even if the in-game reality is in an odd "paused" state...)  Did you have any ideas to improve on that?

Finally, I must admit, I don't wanna scare GMs off this game by making it even more demanding on them than it already is.  But maybe that's an issue I shrug and bite the bullet on.

I suspect you may have hit the point at which die-rolling is more hassle than a chart lookup and that it may be time to take another look at a good old fashioned CRT.  Take some of the calculations out of peoples heads and embody them in a physical prop.

My old homebrew used 1d10 to determine a colour on a chart lookup (as a measurment of relative success), and the colour was then exploited both for hit location and for damage effect, both of them also on chart lookups.  It wasn't super fast but it was only 3 or 4 die drops end to end, which appears to be less than you have at the moment.

Hi again David,

One bit at a time...

1) to know the GM isn't fudging things.  I could just ask players to trust the GM, but I'd rather not, for reasons I can go into later if necessary.

Contracycle,
I'll think about charts, but I'm having trouble un-randomizing things.  The multiple rolls are just so various outcomes aren't 100% correlated with each other.  Hmm.  I'll think about whether I'm okay correlating "damage dealt" with "damage getting through X type of armor", that's at least a possibility...

Callan,
Right of assertion?  Not sure what you mean, or how it relates to the "GM fudging" issue.  Let me clarify by saying this: the GM can pick a monster with whatever stats he wants, as long as those stats don't change.  Treating the consistency of the gameworld like the GM's plaything -- that's what the players need to know is not happening.

Let's say a PC gets hit once by a monster and it nearly kills him.  For whatever reason, he keeps fighting.  He gets hit again.  He thinks, "Fuck, I'm dead."  But the GM, doing his calculations without rolls visible to the player, says, "Whew, lucky you, your armor somehow took all the damage!"  Now the player is wondering, "Did the GM just keep me alive to be nice?"  I don't want that possibility to ever cross players' minds.  The sense of danger in a world that does not behave for your convenience is a primary game goal.

As for the issue of correlating good rolls with good outcomes, I do not wish for any number rolled to have any "automatic" expectations attached to it regardless of in-game circumstance.  In-game circumstance is the alpha and the omega of this resolution system.  Attaching a high roll to an imagined quality effort (see my previous point #2) is cool, but not all quality efforts succeed.

Fair enough, ignore the 'right of assertion', it was a guesstimate.

Let me clarify by saying this: the GM can pick a monster with whatever stats he wants, as long as those stats don't change.

I'm a little unclear on your to-hit roll.  You specify it is made with 2d6, is this aimed at exceeding a target number or similar?

I wonder if you can change that to a roll minus the number, with resulting positives being hits.  Then you could break it down by the degree to which the roll exceeds 0 for other effects such hit location and damage effect.

Heh, we're on the same page there.  Number by which the roll exceeds the target # = additional damage.  ("Additional" means "plus the weapon's base damage".)

Cool, that was a suggestion I was going to make as well.

So then, if x = roll - Tn, then
If x =
1: roll 1d8 for hit location
2: nominate 8 position, roll 1 d8
3: nominate 7 and 8 position, roll 1d8
4: nominate 7 and 8 position, roll 2d8 and choose

Essentially you can keep rolling more d8's for location to quite some degree; even rolling 8d8 is no guarantee you will roll the one number you want.
And linked to damage already, this makes for a dynamic in which good, overpowering attacks go heavily towards your chosen target, and poor attacks are unlikely to go where you want or inflict much damage.

Something like that anyway.  I should mention though that nominating the 7 and 8 positions is essentially meaningless if you are simply rolling one die with no modifiers, as you cannot do anything to influence whether you will roll those numbers.  It might as well be a fixed assignment, the odds are the same.  And I predict that some people will start nominating feet for 8, on the basis that they are personally unlucky.  So that may be another problem, or it may be that not all of the system is available to see how you deal with that.