Y'know, roleplaying games frequently have much larger rulesets for combat than for other activities. This is often explained as a throwback to wargaming roots, or because the game is focused on combat.
While I think there is probably some truth in those explanations, I have an another idea which I think is interesting.

I think that one reason combat needs more extensive rules than other areas of conflict is that players are less likely to be familiar with deadly combat.
Contrasting social conflicts with physical conflicts is instructive. Players will generally be familiar with what kinds of things happen in social situations, and what the trade-offs are between various kinds of actions. For example, they can bargain with a merchant, and they know the risks of making friends with a noble who is currently out of favor in the court. On the other hand, most players have never been in a serious fight of any kind, and wouldn't be able to accurately assess the possible strategies and their potential outcomes when dealing with a small skirmish between two men with swords and three men with spears on a bridge.

Most games I've seen take one of two approaches. One approach is to include a combat engine of sufficient complexity to cover the tactical nuances of combat. This allows players to evaluate the risks and rewards of various strategies, and then make an informed decision based on the rules present in the combat engine. This approach is Simulationist, but also appeals to Gamist players because the combat engine provides structure for competition. The other approach is to gloss over combat, treating it like any other conflict in the game. This looser system has more appeal to Narrativist players and GMs, since it allows them to pick whatever strategic considerations would be appropriate for the story.
For example, suppose the party is fleeing from a large band of orcs when they come to a bridge, where one of the characters decides to make a stand to buy time for the rest of the party to escape. There are a number of variables here, including but not limited to:
* The amount of damage he does to the orcs
* The amount of damage the orcs do to him
* The effect the stand has on the parties likelihood of escape
Since the players don't have any experience with this type of conflict they need some way to decide whether or not someone should stay back to hold off the orcs. A complex combat engine gives players information about these variables. In D&D the orcs might be able to cross the bridge (while getting shot a bit with arrows) and kill the character fairly easily, and then continue tracking the party without any significant delay. In a more realistic combat system, the character might be able to delay the orcs longer and kill several of them. In a more freeform system, by contrast, the players and GM can pick the strategic variables to make the story better. For instance, if one of the characters has betrayed the party and wants to atone for his sin, maybe he could remain behind, ensuring the parties safety and his death. On the other hand, if one of the characters wants to prove himself to the party, maybe the character can remain behind, and give the orcs a good fight, and then escape to rejoin the party.

I've kinda been blathering on a bit. My main point is that one reason for complex combat rules is the lack of player experience with combat. In contrast, you can get away with less complex rules for things like social interaction because even the most hardcore Simulationist is more able to wing it fairly well.

Grover wrote: Y'know, roleplaying games frequently have much larger rulesets for combat than for other activities. This is often explained as a throwback to wargaming roots, or because the game is focused on combat.

Don't forget Wushu's combat, which is geared towards, in the creator's words, a fight choreographer's mindset rather than that of a tactician or strategist.

Hi there,

Grover, I think you'll be interested in reading Mike's standard rant #3: combat systems.

Also, the current range of available games seems to have bucked the historical trend very thoroughly. Wushu is only one of many examples.

Best,
Ron

The problem with the idea that it's simply because combat is unfamiliar, is that, if that were the case, you'd see similarly complex systems in terms of, say, theivery. Instead, you see these things handled with single die rolls against a target. Note that often it's not even that combat is all that much more complex, but that it's decided that it has to be broken down into smaller tasks to determine outcome. How come ten seconds of combat in GURPS takes 100 times longer to detail mechanically than ten minutes of breaking into a building?

I'd even accept this argument if any designer had ever made it. But the guys who made D&D were wargamers, and imitating their own wargame designs (we can trace them back through chainmail and other wargame designs). And games since have tended to look to some extent like D&D. So it's plainly traditional.

More importantly, when you play without the assumption that it's more complicated, or needs to be more detailed, the fallacy is revealed in that players produce narration that's just as good or better than the detailed systems. Turns out, too, that for the most part, they're not like Andrew's player. They play D&D quite happily because they have no idea what realistic combat is like, and they don't really care. They want the combat to be plausible within the genre that they're playing. For which they have fantasy novels, spy literature, movies, etc. Emulating these seems to bring the greatest pleasure for most players.

And it turns out that we're all fairly expert at this sort of narration. So no extra rules are neccessary. That's not to say that it's not fun to play Phoenix Command from time to time if I really do want a detailed and realistic portrayal. Just that it's only one option amongst many.

Mike

Combat is conflict externalised. The majority of RP'ers are male, men are practical creatures and like conflict that they can manipulate physically. Also males have a strong, millennia long history of hunting and gathering.

People also like to have something solid between their character and their characters demise in a game. A simple rule like 'No PC can die' is one method, another method is to use more rules than that. I believe our millennia long history relates more to the latter. Whether this is implimented through the systems rule book or through social contract rules, it's still rules being put into place.

On the other hand, I believe the example shows how pointless this gets sometimes. What is important? That someone is technically able to hold off orcs at a bridge...or that fact they want to? That they will risk their lives to save the others. That they care that much about this! This examination is rich and fruitful (IMO), but the focus tends to boil down to statistical analysis of the situation and then moving pawns, sorry, PC's into position, regardless of what those PC's care about. Passion will not determine who does what, BAB will.

Don't get me wrong, statistics are great. If a wounded and weak guy decides to stay at the bridge, this technical weakness (shown by a bunch of rules) helps to highlight even further his care for the others. The technical side is great, in a purely narrative game you don't get this contrast...sure, you can say someones wounded, but it sounds like your forcing contrast to be there, rather than the technicalities of the matter being concrete and the contrast is thus similarly concrete.

But while its clear these rules are not the end but a means to examine the end (which is passion), all too often they end up the sole focus of examination themselves. But is this the result of combat rules, or lack of skill of the gaming group?

The reason that there are so many combat rules in comparison to other conflict resolution rules, is that most other conflicts are social in nature and the people at the table playing act the parts of their characters and play that social interaction out in the real world versus the game world. When you start to talk about the physics of the game world then all the simulationist rules start to crop up to explain how those physics work in that game world. You could go get wooden sticks and act out the conflict by beating each other up in the backyard of the real world and say that the winner defends the bridge in the game world, but most people would prefer to keep the game cerebral. So, in short, the physical world of the game world spawns more rules for the aspects that the game is focusing than the social aspects of the game because the social aspects can be played out in the real world (that's why the whole S-part of the GNS model exists, right?)

Personally, I really hate most social interaction rules in most roleplaying games because it takes the social aspect out of the play of the game.

Umberhulk wrote: The reason that there are so many combat rules in comparison to other conflict resolution rules, is that most other conflicts are social in nature and the people at the table playing act the parts of their characters and play that social interaction out in the real world versus the game world.

Umberhulk wrote: Personally, I really hate most social interaction rules in most roleplaying games because it takes the social aspect out of the play of the game.

John,

I disagree that walking isn't modelled by rules in a lot of games. Everytime there are movement points, facing, and maps the games are describing walking, running, going prone, crawling, etc.. Most people understand walking and running in a freeform way, but how does that compare with the other character that is carrying 100 lbs. on their back?

-Brodie

P.S. - I love your website. What a great resource that Big Ass List of Games is!

Is it because most of us actually like combat!

We like the idea of combat but would dred to do it.
We like the idea of magic but can not do it.

Why does the plot of so many of the greatest novels or movies pivot around dramatic fight scenes or magical/fateful occurences?

We are entertained by fiction, fantasy, the impossible. Social enactments and mundane things like walking, we do every day, there is not a great buzz in reenacting them.

On the other hand when we role play we get to do the things that we can't do every day, like combat, and if we are going to play a game with rules and charts and stats then let's dedicate them to that.

So I think Grover is right. The rules are there because we don't know how to do it (combat) - but also I would like to add that the rules are also there because most of us love a good fight scene!

The problem being then, that combat rules in rpg's generally don't produce good fight scenes.

Or rather, they're geared towards fight scenes that are either tactically interesting, "realistic" or dramatic, and don't support the other two priorities. But you cna guess where I'm going here.

Your "good fight scene" may not be my "good fight scene".

Why combat rules in every game? Because most rpg's are abuot combat. Becuase they're proud of the lineagegoing back to Chainmail. Because it's easier to add more gam / sim rules onto existing rulessets to make your more gam / sim. Because the traditional audience for rpg's has always been adolescent / psychologically adolescent males, for whom, in their fantasies, "violence is always an option," and other solutions are "another way" that doesn't need nrules because, hey , I know how to talk to people .

Hello everyone,

I suggest that it is not corrrect to assume that the presence of unique or uniquely-detailed rules for combat necessarily means that a given game's content will have more combat in it, or that combat will play a bigger role in whatever story, if any, is going on.

The presence of those sorts of rules merely means that combat, when present, requires learning more stuff (not necessarily a bad thing) and (historically speaking) takes longer to run. Those two things can result in play which prioritizes combat, for a number of reasons. To assume either that they must, or that play without them will not prioritize combat, is mistaken.

Grover, one thing that would really help this discussion - especially since it's drawing in a lot of new posters at the Forge, who aren't familiar with older discussions yet - is for you to state, up front, exactly what problem or issue of role-playing this phenomenon represents for you.

Secondly, if you could compare your thoughts about that with Mike's in his Standard Rant (linked above), pointing out what's similar and what's different between the two of your views, then we could really get somewhere.

Best,
Ron

Lorenzo Rubbo-Ferraro wrote: So I think Grover is right. The rules are there because we don't know how to do it (combat) - but also I would like to add that the rules are also there because most of us love a good fight scene!

I think implanting a combat system is traditional only as a symptom, the cause of it being instinct (as I said above).

We are fascinated by death. Draw a chart on rules density, with one end about death and the other about anything else...the density occurs near the death end and thins out from there, in a majority of systems.

I'd suggest your going against more than tradition/peer pressure when not putting a combat system in, your going against human instinct. And in saying that, I'm not saying its wrong to do so, just framing the situation.

People want to throw cameras at other people in wheelchairs! Heh heh, just proving I read the other thread! :)

EDIT: But yeah, as Mikes rant says, you don't have to have a combat system in (though all systems end up with conflict resolution systems...ah crap, someone will tell me one which doesn't now). But will you be failing to address deep seated human instincts, on the fascination with death? I mean, if you made a game where there is no charisma score or such like, you might feel its continually missing something. I'm talking about a nagging feeling of 'something intimate is missing here...'

Hi there,
I'd just like to make the observation that in most of the games I've played, the combat system is primarily about fine-grained timing.[1] When performing an activity where every second counts, and indeed characters are making lots of decisions really quickly, it's often not satisfactory to abstract over all the details. There are other times when decisions must be made quickly, like when trapped in the room filling with water, when playing in-game sports, driving in a car-chase, etc... Often these things will use the "combat" timing system too. Perhaps another reason so many games have combat systems is that they're genuinely useful even when games don't involve combat. And "combat system" is less of a mouthful than "fine-grained timing system".

Weeble.

[1] In these games the bit about one person trying to hit another person is generally more or less consistent with the rest of the system. The only other special part of combat is the system that tracks the effects of injury.

Welcome to the Forge, Grover.

I'm having a lot of trouble with your contention that RPGs have combat systems because most players are unfamiliar with combat. My big problem stems from the fact that it seems to me the earliest footholds D&D got as far as player groups were on college campuses and military bases. Many people first started playing these games in the army. Now, perhaps you want to argue that at that time there wasn't much combat happening, so these people didn't really know what it was like; but I suspect that our training programs were sufficient to give them the idea of what it was like. Thus if a significant portion of the original gamers were military, the argument that they didn't know anything about combat sort of crumbles. It may well be that more of them knew about combat than knew about auto mechanics, or computers (PCs were still rare), or medicine--there are a lot of things that are commonly done in games that are covered in much less detail.

Mike's right that a lot of combat systems are included for tradition. Even in Multiverser, where we don't have a distinct combat system but do include a chapter discussing how the task resolution system is applied in combat (in some detail), we state that it's there in large part because a lot of gamers want to do that.

Yet I think Noon has put his finger on an important aspect: combat can be fatal; it can mean the end of the character's existence in the game. If you're bargaining with a merchant over a price, or trying to open a door to a hidden room, or attempting to hack into a computer, a single roll which says whether you succeeded or failed is fine, because if you fail you'll change your plan or try something else. In combat, if you put everything on a single roll, you've got that chance, no matter how small, that the character will die--then there is no opportunity to try something else.

Thus by breaking combat down to smaller increments, you make it possible for the character to make those "change of plans" decisions before it's too late--I'm going to change weapons, I'm going to get out of here, I'm going to do something to save my character and keep him in play. We stretch out combat not because it's more fun when it's stretched out (I've been through a few overly long boring combats over the years), but because it gives us the safety net of being able to think and choose and change our tactics on the fly, thus giving us the edge we need to survive.

On the bridge example, I don't think I get it. If the bridge is narrow enough that one person could effectively hold it against attackers, even in D&D the one who stays behind is going to buy his companions a significant delay, as the orcs could only fight him one at a time, one attack per minute, and probably won't kill him for several minutes at best. If the bridge is wide enough that several opponents could engage him simultaneously, it is probably too wide for one person to defend and he's foolish to attempt to do so. The reason bridges are defensive points is that they are narrow, and enemy forces have to pass through singly (not to mention that they can be destroyed, preventing anyone from passing at all).

--M. J. Young

Noon, even if humans are indeed obsessed with death (and to a certain extent I'd agree with you) that says nothing about the need for combat mechanics per se. For one thing, even in games where a chatracter might die, say a game based on Jane Aire, there's no special need for combat mechanics...so I think you argument would have to be that such systems arise from a human need for violence, not just an attention to death. But as Mike points out, even this says nothing about the need for special combat systems.

M.J.'s suggestion that combat systems arise to hold off the serious consequences of combat is an interesting one. Of course it rests on the assumption that combat systems resolve combat with more decision-making than would normal resolution mechanics. However, while D&D drags things out a lot with the attrition warfare of hit points, the combat is in fact highly abstracted (compare with Riddle of Steel), and in many other games combat resolves with little input at all -- in fact I might debate how much input D&D really ever allowed.

What if D&D had instead goen the route of breaking combat down into many separate action resolutions? Roll to swing sword, roll to move shield, etc...no special rules, just the same ones used anywhere, applied to combat, and you still get detail and a way to stave off death. Maybe the reason we haven't seen this much, getting back to what Grover said, is a lack of familiarity with real combat on the part of players. I think it might have mroe to do with the assumption by deesigners that this would be a big problem.

In my experiences with gamers, they're not at all shy about theorizing on how combat works, even with no background in it: they'll argue (in general and not within a specific system) for hours about how parries work without having ever held a sword, or about aiming a sniper rifle without ever having picked up a gun. But whether player intuitions about combat are right or not, it doesn't seem that they lack those intuitions, and that seems enough to run a game with, sans special rules.

Jasper wrote: M.J.'s suggestion that combat systems arise to hold off the serious consequences of combat is an interesting one. Of course it rests on the assumption that combat systems resolve combat with more decision-making than would normal resolution mechanics. However, while D&D drags things out a lot with the attrition warfare of hit points, the combat is in fact highly abstracted (compare with Riddle of Steel), and in many other games combat resolves with little input at all -- in fact I might debate how much input D&D really ever allowed.

I'm not arguing against the proposition that a detailed combat system can allow for the -- probably desirable -- phenomenon of providing a chance to avoid dire ends. What I don't see is why the phenomenon requires a dedicated combat system. A generic action/conflict resolution system could be employed just as well to do the same thing. And that use could either be explicitly part of the game's published rules (i.e. "When character lives are on the line, but sure to play out all the little details so no one dies because of one roll.") or it could be implied or just something that players tend towards.

This gets at my second point, which is that this is not necessarily a phenomenon that has to be restricted to combat. Any even that significantly impacts (changes) a character could, perhaps should, be dealt with using enough separate decision-making points that it can be foreseen and accepted or fought off. In a game about Jane Aire, the loss of your reputation could be completely devastating, and has nothing to do with combat, but it involves the same issues.

At the same time, the inclusion of a dedicated combat system certainly does not guarantee good and plentiful decision-making to give death-avoiding possibilities. This is all I was getting at with the comment regarding the debatability of D&D's ability in this. (And I don't really want to debate it, at least not in this thread.)

All I'm really getting at is that while there have been many good ideas justifying rules governing combat, as Mike clearly pointed out a few messages ago, this is not contrary to the point he made in his rant. We all agree that combat is something that (if it is to come up in a game at all) needs to be resolved. The point was that it frequently doesn't need a special way of being resolved, unique to it alone.

Could the need for (and emphasis on) combat rules steem from the fact that human history is that rich of violent conflicts and that has also heavily colored the kind of stories that humans tell. And that this history and/or the stories had an influence on the games we play?

On the other hand there is the question where the rules are for other, not as prominent, forms of conflict (or loot aquisition) like trade or politics.
Additionally when you for example read people talking about the momentary hyped cinematic games they almost exclusivly talk about things like mook rules or stunt rules etc. What happened to films that are not braindead hack orgies? Or are they just not cinematic enough.
This seems to show soemthing about what minds shape the combat rules nowadays.

Maarzan wrote: Could the need for (and emphasis on) combat rules steem from the fact that human history is that rich of violent conflicts and that has also heavily colored the kind of stories that humans tell. And that this history and/or the stories had an influence on the games we play?

Maarzan wrote: Could the need for (and emphasis on) combat rules steem from the fact that human history is that rich of violent conflicts and that has also heavily colored the kind of stories that humans tell. And that this history and/or the stories had an influence on the games we play?

On the other hand there is the question where the rules are for other, not as prominent, forms of conflict (or loot aquisition) like trade or politics.
Additionally when you for example read people talking about the momentary hyped cinematic games they almost exclusivly talk about things like mook rules or stunt rules etc. What happened to films that are not braindead hack orgies? Or are they just not cinematic enough.
This seems to show soemthing about what minds shape the combat rules nowadays.

another idea: maybe combat is in there because it's an intersection of sorts.
In combat, skill use meets equipment meets health (meets magic).
Now one could have health issues related to falling, poisoning and illness separated, and there isn't much need for combat equipment if there is little combat, but still, once a minimum of physical violence is part of the game, it makes sense to devote a little more attention to a part where various game mechanisms interact. Admitedly, one could do the same for climbing but apart from that I'm having slight troubles coming up with similar examples (that of course depends on whether "hacking" in e.g. Shadowrun is considered "combat". I'd tentatively say yes.)

Um... maybe this is a stupid question, or maybe it's best suited to another thread[1], but what counts as a combat system? Is it the rules for using weapons, the management of injury and death, the timing of actions, movement, or indeed all or none of the above? All of these things are involved in combat, but I think many of them are not unique to combat in a lot of games. Or is it just the fact that there's a chapter titled "Combat" that we're worried about?

Weeble.

[1] - If so, please move it. I'm not sure about when to split.

Jasper wrote: What I don't see is why the phenomenon requires a dedicated combat system. A generic action/conflict resolution system could be employed just as well to do the same thing.

Weeble, I think that's an excellent question.

I think, for the purposes of this thread, we can define a "combat system" as "a subset of the rules of a game which are, intentionally, specifically applicable to the resolution of combat." Or something of the sort.

weeble wrote: Um... maybe this is a stupid question, or maybe it's best suited to another thread[1], but what counts as a combat system?

M. J. Young wrote: Mike's argument is that games that aren't really about combat probably shouldn't have a seperate and distinct system for resolving combat, and I agree.

I think you can make a less strong claim, however: "Games that are not trying to create a particular effect with combat need not devote specialized systems to it."

It's really more about effect than focus, IMO.

M.J. Young wrote: I think, though, that combat systems are included in many games because of this "life on the line" aspect....

John Kim wrote: I would say the game is not about combat. Combats are pretty rare, happening maybe once every 3 or 4 sessions (if that). However, when it occurs combat is terribly important to the lives of the characters.

Jasper wrote:

John Kim wrote: I would say the game is not about combat. Combats are pretty rare, happening maybe once every 3 or 4 sessions (if that). However, when it occurs combat is terribly important to the lives of the characters.

Hm, an aspect of the game that's terribly important to the character... sounds like your game's about combat to me. Not just about combat, mind you...but if a subject is important, the game could certainly said to be about it. Maybe that's just a pedantic argument though. At any rate, the real point is that a lot of games have combat rules for no good reason...if Vinland has benefitted from them, that's obviously a good enough reason!

Jasper wrote: Noon, even if humans are indeed obsessed with death (and to a certain extent I'd agree with you) that says nothing about the need for combat mechanics per se.

For one thing, even in games where a chatracter might die, say a game based on Jane Aire, there's no special need for combat mechanics...so I think you argument would have to be that such systems arise from a human need for violence, not just an attention to death. But as Mike points out, even this says nothing about the need for special combat systems.

*snip*

In my experiences with gamers, they're not at all shy about theorizing on how combat works, even with no background in it: they'll argue (in general and not within a specific system) for hours about how parries work without having ever held a sword, or about aiming a sniper rifle without ever having picked up a gun. But whether player intuitions about combat are right or not, it doesn't seem that they lack those intuitions, and that seems enough to run a game with, sans special rules.

Hello,

All right, this is getting silly. Everyone is merely presenting his own view over and over - it's starting to become a "gee I wanna be heard" rather than "what can be established."

Let's see if I have these right.

1. Distinct combat systems are a procedural leftover from wargaming.

2. Distinct combat systems compensate for the lack of real-life knowledge about combat.

3. Distinct combat systems reflect an inner drive and fascination with death and violence.

4. Distinct combat systems represent design inertia (or conversely, wholly-unified systems represent a more recent "locked-in" limitation).

That's all very interesting, and if I'm not mistaken, it's time to say, "Thanks for playing," and refer people to this thread if they need to muse over the issue. But I'm not seeing any productive discussion about substantial issues, so - unlike someone really objects (PM me), then this thread is closed.

For the new people at the Forge, that means never post to it again, please. If you'd like to continue some focused aspect of the discussion, then start a new thread.

Best,
Ron