Combat verus Role Playing

[rancke]

I'm sick and tired of the rules forcing players to play strategic games. "Can I charge there? Let's calculate...no, the stone is on the way. Will I get flanking here? Let's calculate...yes, you will. Can I move there without attacks of opportunity? Let's calculate..." and so on. The examples are from D&D/Pathfinder rules, which are far from RPG.

Many roleplayers also enjoy wargames and boardgames. Personally I think a 50/50 mix of roll-playing and role-playing is ideal. But if you don't enjoy tactical games, you do have a problem.

Hmmm... many years ago I ran a mail campaign inspired by Tony Bath's Setting up a Wargames Campaign. Mr. Bath used his campaign to create opportunities for running tabletop wargames; I ran it for the high-level politicking and worked out a point system and some die rolls to resolve the actual battles. I wonder if one could work out a set of rules, point values, and die rolls for resolving PC-level fights quickly, based on the characters' skills and the tactical situation?


Hans

 

[robject]

You can try my way which is to reduce the armour by the effect dice of the weapon. For example if a weapon does Bullet-5 reduce the armour by 5.

Nice. I can try that as well. Actually, that solves two problems, the second being: "what about types of damage which really won't hurt armor?" Certain effects don't reduce armor.

 

[Licheking]

yeah thats how i do it

 

[Ector]

Many roleplayers also enjoy wargames and boardgames. Personally I think a 50/50 mix of roll-playing and role-playing is ideal. But if you don't enjoy tactical games, you do have a problem.

Looks like you didn't understand me. I do enjoy tactical games. And I do enjoy role-playing games. But I hate mixing the genres! :nonono:
If you allow your players to play a tactical game, they tend to forget about their characters and the game reality. They are browsing rulebooks to find the best possible moves and positions. They begin to ask questions instead of acting. If they want a tactical game, let them play a tactical game, but Traveller is a RPG for me.

 

[robject]

If you allow your players to play a tactical game, they tend to forget about their characters and the game reality. They are browsing rulebooks to find the best possible moves and positions. They begin to ask questions instead of acting. If they want a tactical game, let them play a tactical game, but Traveller is a RPG for me.

I've seen this happen. It seems that combat decisions in an RPG are typically tactical -- or am I confusing my terms?

I find your previous post fascinating:

A good RPG combat rules should emphasize "status changing", not the simple decrease of HP and fatigue. Status changing can be:

Killing/disabling one of combatants
Inflicting a wound causing degrade of combat abilities
Applying a drug than enhances combat abilities
End of ammo for some combatants, forcing the weapon switch
Activation of environmental effects like smoke grenades
Changing of combatants' goals (i.e. "Don't let him go away!" or "Take him alive!"
... and so on


More status changes = more interesting combat. The ideal combat has a lot of status changes and almost no number-cruhching. But the ideal doesn't exist, you know.

Let me think about T5 according to your metrics.

* disabling combatants - yes, emphasized
* wounds to degrade combat capability - most/all Traveller rulesets have this
* applying effects (e.g. drugs) which enhance combat ability - most/all Traveller rulesets have this
* end of ammo - NO, though the penultimate draft emphasized this
* environmental effects - present, not emphasized (I think)
* goal changes - no, but this is perhaps above the combat rules?

 

[rancke]

Looks like you didn't understand me. I do enjoy tactical games. And I do enjoy role-playing games. But I hate mixing the genres! :nonono:

I don't think it's a mixing of genres. I think an RPG requires a mixture of roleplaying (~improvized theater) and gaming (die rolls).


Hans

 

[Vladika]

* end of ammo - NO, though the penultimate draft emphasized this

This one really gets to me. More like a teen arcade game.

In all seriousness, when your PC leaves his ship, in general, would they really be carrying much more than a side arm?

MAYBE a spare clip or two for an auto pistol and a couple of speed loaders for a revolver?

If you have a D&D style "bag of holding" for ammo, or worse yet, a firearm that never needs reloading, there is little incentive to think your way out of a situation.

 

[Licheking]

If you allow your players to play a tactical game, they tend to forget about their characters and the game reality. They are browsing rulebooks to find the best possible moves and positions. They begin to ask questions instead of acting.

And thats why i prefer my players not to have access to the rulebooks. They will learn how combat works as the game goes on, and I'm very lenient about mistakes during the first few sessions of a new system.

I do know what you mean though as i have a couple of players that are always trying to find the most advantageous ways of getting through combat generating extra attacks or finding openings that the characters wouldn't necessarily be thinking about. And this extends to character generation as well we have all heard of Min/Maxing to get the most (Exploit) the game system at hand to make the most uber character around. Fortunately most of my players try to think like their characters during combat or try to build on an initial character concept without really knowing the rules.

 

[pennshome723]

And thats why i prefer my players not to have access to the rulebooks. They will learn how combat works as the game goes on, and I'm very lenient about mistakes during the first few sessions of a new system.

I do know what you mean though as i have a couple of players that are always trying to find the most advantageous ways of getting through combat generating extra attacks or finding openings that the characters wouldn't necessarily be thinking about. And this extends to character generation as well we have all heard of Min/Maxing to get the most (Exploit) the game system at hand to make the most uber character around. Fortunately most of my players try to think like their characters during combat or try to build on an initial character concept without really knowing the rules.

They are what we call the Min-Maxer game set....the type of player that brings a bag of 100 dice to the table and pours the contents on the table infront of them and then when it is time to make a roll, they roll the dice and ...woops the dice roll into the mass and they pick out the best scored dice they need fore whatever the roll is for.

That type don't last long in my games, I am and prefer roleplaying over dice gaming. Combats are cool, but they are not the focus in my game at all.

 

[Licheking]

some of my players just pick up their dice before anyone can see the result and say what they need. Again i just ignore some of their rolls don't apply them to bad guys that sort of thing to balance things with the players that are completely honest.

Actually i have found that a couple of my players fudge (Cheat) when it come to rolling the dice but either picking them up quickly or using hard to read dice so they can say whatever they want. But when you offer them a system thats diceless to avoid all the 'random' elements they don't want to know. It Completely baffles me why anyone would want to cheat at a roleplaying game, its not adversarial and as long as your character improves and your having fun surely what the dice roll shouldn't matter. Some of the best moments in our games have been when the dice went against the group thats why we use them.

 

[Original_Carl]

If you have a D&D style "bag of holding" for ammo, or worse yet, a firearm that never needs reloading, there is little incentive to think your way out of a situation.

That's the future! Just start applying Moore' Law to your devices and pretty soon, they're going to look like magic items. Guns won't ever run out of ammo in the future, or at least they'll have so much that they might as well have an infinite supply.

For me, this is one of the core attractants to Traveller and SciFi (or Speculative Fiction as it's starting to be titled) as an RPG milieu. Devices and the super powers they convey to characters make for some really interesting game sessions. For every unlimited magazine, there's an equal and opposite personal force field with perfect kinetic reflection.

 

[Original_Carl]

some of my players just pick up their dice before anyone can see the result and say what they need.

Takes all kinds to make a gaming group, I suppose. I've had cheaters in the past and done everything from shaming to making them reroll to kicking them out on the spot. I think it's a cry for attention on some level, but I'm equally sure that brazen displays of unethical behavior are not something I want in my game room. The gaming table is one of the few places in the world where fairness has meaning and weight.

 

[rancke]

Actually i have found that a couple of my players fudge (Cheat) when it come to rolling the dice but either picking them up quickly or using hard to read dice so they can say whatever they want.

I haven't had that problem, and of course I know nothing of your group's social dynamics, so I don't know what's the right thing for you, but if I wanted to check such behavior, I think I'd simply tell my players that if I can't verify the die roll, it's automatically a failure.



Hans

 

[Licheking]

Within the group we all know who does fudge and doesn't and so we just quietly get on with it and they trust me to adjudicate fairly what actually happens. So we don't name and shame, i have done that in the past and it fractured the whole social group, i have asked cheaters not to come anymore unless they stop, but we find that just ignoring some of the cheaters rolls and getting on with the game works for us.

It just amuses me that some of those cheats harp on about the unfairness of the dice and when i offer to run a diceless system they protest about how thats not proper roleplaying and unfair. I think its because they need to be in control and being able to control the results of the dice is that control as opposed to seeing past the rolls and controlling events through the characters actions.