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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
A discussion of metagame concepts in game design
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<blockquote data-quote="chaochou" data-source="post: 7465342" data-attributes="member: 99817"><p>Apologies, I misread your question, or its intent, or both.</p><p></p><p>There certainly isn't a system that I'm aware of that captures all the things I described. But there are certainly systems that have a more convincing model than attrite to zero.</p><p></p><p>Runequest and Rolemaster are good traditional examples of good sim systems. Runequest has hit locations with individual armour and hit points that can fail independently of each other. So you can lose the use of your shield arm, or be on the floor with a leg given way and greatly disadvantaged. It also has system shock, bleeding out, loss of limbs. Damage makes attacking harder. And HP are based almost entirely on your size and constitution. You might have 14 HP and stay there all game, while a sword might be doing 1D8+1+1D4 damage. It's a proper HP as meat model.</p><p></p><p>Rolemaster uses a wide range of critical tables to inflict descriptive and mechanical conditions on combatants. So while you might have 241 HP, you can be losing 11 a turn from a cut artery, take stuns, negatives to your next attack or attacks, defensive penalties, broken weapons, dislocations. I didn't play it that much, but it was also the basis of ICEs Middle Earth game in the 80s so I know it from there.</p><p></p><p>Riddle of Steel is a hard to find Indie game now out of print. It was a poster child for sword combat, authored by a practiced HEMA swordfighter. Characters have fighting styles based on their weapons, and those in turn give them sets of moves. They also have a dice pool which you split between attack and defense and then each side chooses their attacks and defenses and dice off. If you get hit it ranges from the nasty to incapacitated to fatal. No cheap magic healing, neither. The combat system was good for duels, but not polished, difficult, downright impenetrable in places. But still an eye opener for just what a totally different game you get when combat is to be avoided except in the absolute last resort.</p><p></p><p>Others in the thread have talked about Fate. [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] alluded to Blades in the Dark, which gives a small harm clock, plus the opportunity for flexible conditions / descriptors for wounds, impairments or conditions.</p><p></p><p>The original Hero Wars gave you a pool of 'Hit Points' in any contest based on your skill score. So if you were trying to kill someone and they were trying to scare you away and you had a skill of 28 in Vicious Swordplay and they had 24 in Get Back You Cur, you'd start with 'pools' of 28 and 24 respectively. Like D&D what mattered was getting someone to zero. But the stakes shifted depending on what intents and action declarations were made. You can use free descriptors as appropriate to add conditions, wounds, injuries, ailments to characters (they essentially become skills that then act as hindrances when appropriate) as the action unfolds.</p><p></p><p>These are just a handful. I liked the first edition of WHFRP as well, but I've run out of mojo for typing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="chaochou, post: 7465342, member: 99817"] Apologies, I misread your question, or its intent, or both. There certainly isn't a system that I'm aware of that captures all the things I described. But there are certainly systems that have a more convincing model than attrite to zero. Runequest and Rolemaster are good traditional examples of good sim systems. Runequest has hit locations with individual armour and hit points that can fail independently of each other. So you can lose the use of your shield arm, or be on the floor with a leg given way and greatly disadvantaged. It also has system shock, bleeding out, loss of limbs. Damage makes attacking harder. And HP are based almost entirely on your size and constitution. You might have 14 HP and stay there all game, while a sword might be doing 1D8+1+1D4 damage. It's a proper HP as meat model. Rolemaster uses a wide range of critical tables to inflict descriptive and mechanical conditions on combatants. So while you might have 241 HP, you can be losing 11 a turn from a cut artery, take stuns, negatives to your next attack or attacks, defensive penalties, broken weapons, dislocations. I didn't play it that much, but it was also the basis of ICEs Middle Earth game in the 80s so I know it from there. Riddle of Steel is a hard to find Indie game now out of print. It was a poster child for sword combat, authored by a practiced HEMA swordfighter. Characters have fighting styles based on their weapons, and those in turn give them sets of moves. They also have a dice pool which you split between attack and defense and then each side chooses their attacks and defenses and dice off. If you get hit it ranges from the nasty to incapacitated to fatal. No cheap magic healing, neither. The combat system was good for duels, but not polished, difficult, downright impenetrable in places. But still an eye opener for just what a totally different game you get when combat is to be avoided except in the absolute last resort. Others in the thread have talked about Fate. [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] alluded to Blades in the Dark, which gives a small harm clock, plus the opportunity for flexible conditions / descriptors for wounds, impairments or conditions. The original Hero Wars gave you a pool of 'Hit Points' in any contest based on your skill score. So if you were trying to kill someone and they were trying to scare you away and you had a skill of 28 in Vicious Swordplay and they had 24 in Get Back You Cur, you'd start with 'pools' of 28 and 24 respectively. Like D&D what mattered was getting someone to zero. But the stakes shifted depending on what intents and action declarations were made. You can use free descriptors as appropriate to add conditions, wounds, injuries, ailments to characters (they essentially become skills that then act as hindrances when appropriate) as the action unfolds. These are just a handful. I liked the first edition of WHFRP as well, but I've run out of mojo for typing. [/QUOTE]
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