Hey all,

I've got another question pertaining to my fantasy game, this time to do with resolution systems.  I'm hitting a major stumbling block, and I'm hoping to get some insight about how to approach the problem better.

Quick synopsis of the game: an anime & video game inspired swashbuckling / martial arts fantasy game with steampunk elements (Final Fantasy-ish meets Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa, etc.)  Mechanically, the goal is a "fast & loose system with a traditional feel and story elements. 

Many moons ago, I was attempting to make a fast playing / rules light, traditional, combat focused game; sort of like Silhouette or Cortex.  Both games use task-based resolution, with fairly mechanical outcomes (I swing my sword; do I hit? y/n).  Over the years, I discovered games like WUSHU--with action packed and highly descriptive resolution systems (I slash at his face with my cutlass, dive and spin under his sabre arm, twist up behind him like a hurricane, and take his head off!)

Now, what I want is something sort of in-between.  I want players to describe their character's actions in flowing, blow-by-whirling-blow torrents of awesome, possibly invoking special stances and moves defined by their mad martial arts skills (or social abilities, or kool powurz, depending on the type of conflict) to produce almost Scott Pilgrim-like levels of epic mayhem. 

But at the same time, each blow will have to be tracked (if not actually resolved) separately, in keeping with an action point mechanic (which puts some practical limits on the craziness).  I know I'm looking at some form of conflict-based resolution, but when & how often should fortune checks be made?  Obviously not for every task, but definitely at least one for every "turn" in the conflict per player (possibly more when accounting for defensive checks).

Unfortunately, I can't seem to properly articulate how this all works in a mechanical sense.  Is this what is meant by IIEE?

I'm looking for any ideas on how I can break this problem down better, so I can really see how it all should work; and/or any suggestions, insights, or research materials that might help.

IIEE is all about where things get resolved in the fiction and where things are just sorta up in the air. See Vincent's most excellent summary. It also touches on "fate in the middle" and "fate at the end," which are two ways to think about where your dice roll happens in the real-world play process.

In general, "fast playing / rules light" is in direct opposition to tracking and rolling for "every blow." There are some games that do this well, however.

Look at Vincent Baker's game, Dogs in the Vineyard, for a back-and-forth negotiation system that rocks on toast. Basically, a player builds a dice pool by rolling in stats and traits and relationships and equipment, then "raises" dice two at a time in a sort of dice-poker game. The other side has to "see" that raise with an equal or greater total on two dice to "block." Seeing with three or more dice is "taking the blow" (and taking damage, called "fallout"). Seeing with just one die is called "reversing the blow" and gives you an advantage when it's your turn to raise. This system results in a strong back-and-forth negotiation of conflicts and encourage--nay, requires--the kind of action description you want.

Shreyas Sampat's game, Mist-Robed Gate, handles big action conflicts in a different way. (I haven't played the game, though, and I haven't read it in ages, so forgive me if I get details wrong.) The essence is that two players describe what their characters are doing in a battle, and every other player serves as audience and jury. The audience has black and white stones--one color for each combatant--that they put into a bag throughout the conflict as votes of confidence. At the end of the conflict, someone makes a blind draw from the bag and that determines who wins. The main advantage to this system is that the players directly involved in the conflict don't have to think about mechanics at all, just narrate action, and the rest of the players are still engaged by the game.

Here's the thing about rolling dice (or interacting with system, generally). If the players are having fun, it doesn't matter how long it takes. If a conflict is boring for whatever reason, it won't matter how short it is. Make sure your system engages every player all the time.

Specifically with combat systems, players get bored sitting there with nothing to do while another player and the GM roll and narrate boring stuff. It won't matter how florid their prose is if it doesn't affect the other players in some meaningful way and draw them in.

One way to draw players: give them some mechanical ability to shape how things turn out. Careful, as this might disturb issues of "flow" or "stance" or whatever design goals you have in that regard. But if I assume that your "traditional feel" means party-based gaming and the PCs will almost always be fighting together, then just make sure that a player has stuff he can do on every other player's turn, and not just weird exceptional cases. Like almost every turn. Or get rid of the idea of turn-based combat and come up with some other crazy ordering method that captures the chaos of real fights and keeps every player on his or her toes while the action is going on.

If I understand your problem correctly, I'd suggest you look at FUDGE (Grey Ghost Games) or AMBER DICELESS. AMBER may be too "loose" for you, as there is no random dice-roll element at all, but FUDGE does reduce things to some simple descriptiors (e.g. "terrible" or "average"), it's easy to adjust from one level to the other based on role-play elements, and I'm pretty sure it's a free download.

You could also look at FATE, which is a FUDGE-based game and also a free download, becasue it also allows for some cool powers. SPRIT OF THE CENTURY (Evil Hat Games) is a game based on FATE which is designed to simulate pulp action, which can be very much like superhero powers.

It's possible that one of those will give you ideas on how to make your task resolution work better.

Hey Guys,

Thanks guys for the quick replies and advice... 

Finarvyn: I have Spirit of the Century, but the main resolution system didn't seem to do it for me.  In any case, I'll take another look and see if there's something I missed.  I'll stay on the lookout for Amber, too.  I've only read about it, but I understand it's all "karma" based in approach.  That might be a good way for me to go, assuming the karma values related to some sort of action point currency.

Adam: Thank you thank you thank you for that link to Vincent's blog post!  That really helps to break it down--looks like IIEE was a major part of my problem; and he touches on the issue of narrative control in there as well, which is another big part.  I've looked at Dogs, but I've never played it.  I'll look at it again, and also see if I can locate a copy of Mist-Robed Gate.  Also, thanks for the advice about keeping players engaged.  That's certainly been a big issue in the trad. games I've played.  (I'm currently involved in a D&D 3.5 game where a great deal of time is wasted while someone decides what to do, other players advise them, a debate begins about nuances of some feat or magic spell being employed, and if we're lucky, only five or ten long minutes of waiting has gone by before the player finally commits to the action.)

Indeed, the "traditional feel" I wanted to maintain is party-based play with turn-based resolution.  I've had some ideas that break up both the turn-based and party-based stuff, but I was sort of reserving them for later, less traditional game concepts.

Great! Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Me too!  Thanks again :)

I want players to describe their character's actions in flowing, blow-by-whirling-blow torrents of awesome, possibly invoking special stances and moves defined by their mad martial arts skills (or social abilities, or kool powurz, depending on the type of conflict) to produce almost Scott Pilgrim-like levels of epic mayhem.

But at the same time, each blow will have to be tracked (if not actually resolved) separately, in keeping with an action point mechanic (which puts some practical limits on the craziness).  I know I'm looking at some form of conflict-based resolution, but when & how often should fortune checks be made?  Obviously not for every task, but definitely at least one for every "turn" in the conflict per player (possibly more when accounting for defensive checks).

Callan wrote:
At this stage it kind of sounds like 'describe your attack in a cool way' in D&D with the usual caveat 'except it's really not going to make much of a difference, no matter what you narrate, it just goes to a roll either way'?

Callan wrote:
What I'd suggest is that players have tokens (probably best if they are actual physical tokens). They describe all their epic moves and it's ostensible cost is, say, 10 tokens.

But the GM, upon hearing the description, can wave some or all of the cost (or none of the cost).

I got the impression from your post that you wanted fluidity. How about something where, instead of, Spend, AP, boost attack, etc... You have the player whose turn it is roll the dice first, then, he describes what happened based on the roll, this is the first step in his attack, he can then spend action points to capitalize on his description, so, lets say the player is striking with a sword: he rolls a 6 (which for the sake of argument will say allows up to 6 damage), so the player will say "I swing my sword around in a devestating blow, a whirlwind of force building up behind the blade, I have a 6, so I spend 3 action points to do straight damage and 3 for knock back." or some such.

The idea is that the roll would set the limits while the description would allow for possibilities (they have to work an effect into their description, the how of how they achieve it) while the AP actually pay for the effect. Does that make sense?

But I want to keep some element of fortune--at least to avoid things being determined by the whim of the GM.

The winner narrates Effect, within limits set by the degree of success of his roll.

I slash at his face with my cutlass, dive and spin under his sabre arm, twist up behind him like a hurricane, and take his head off!

I hit him. For the full success result.

I slash at his face with my cutlass, dive and spin under his sabre arm, twist up behind him like a hurricane, and take his head off!

To add a bit

That's a really cool idea, and avoids fortune-based mechanics.  But I want to keep some element of fortune--at least to avoid things being determined by the whim of the GM.

Callan wrote:
I just got the impression you wanted players description to matter both as fiction developed and as game currencies in motion? Fortune means that description doesn't matter. I know you have the design of who wins narration. But it's the "your degree of success, determined by fortune, determines the extent of what you can narrate" that makes narration not matter.