Something I've Never Seen in an RPG System

[Rechan]

There are two situations that come up in fantasy books, or in shows, but I've never seen them play out in RPGs.

1) The Contest of Power and Wills. This happens more in superhero shows, but you can find it enough when two wizards battle.

Enemy A and enemy B shoot some sort of force at one another. The two collide, and the two characters continue to shoot. A "Tug of War" commences, where enemy B pushes harder, making Enemy A lose ground, the joining of the beams get closer to him. Then Enemy A pushes back hard, shoving the beams back towards Enemy B.

2) Countering Existing Magic.

This occurs when a magical effect is active (a ritual, an active spell, a powerful arcane monster, a magical gateway), and the spellcasting character is spending putting all of his efforts into weakening the effect.

The effort here is not necessarily to snap your fingers, cast a spell, and make a magical effect go poof. Merely, that he is reducing the effectiveness, or putting a lot of time into defusing the effect completely, while his allies are either A) Keeping the oncoming enemy away so he can work, or B) Weaken a foe/widen a gate or force it closed/drain the power from a ritual/artifact or amplify/recharge the MacGuffin.

I am not necessarily asking "Hey, pull some rules from your rectum to help simulate this", but more that I find it disappointing that such a common situation doesn't have any sort of rules to facilitate it.

Perhaps this is because it's not Exciting (spending most of the combat standing on the side, contributing in an indirect way rather than beatin' the dudes), or too focused on one character and one enemy, rather than engaged with the party.

And... I got nothin' else. Just me rambling.

 

[evilref]

There are two situations that come up in fantasy books, or in shows, but I've never seen them play out in RPGs.

1) The Contest of Power and Wills. This happens more in superhero shows, but you can find it enough when two wizards battle.

I can't think off the top of my head of anything with that exact visualisation, but the essence of it has been done in a number of games. You could look at Certament from Ars Magica or an arcane-inspired Duel of Wits from Burning Wheel - both off the top of my head and I'm sure there are a lot more examples.

2) Countering Existing Magic.

This occurs when a magical effect is active (a ritual, an active spell, a powerful arcane monster, a magical gateway), and the spellcasting character is spending putting all of his efforts into weakening the effect.

The effort here is not necessarily to snap your fingers, cast a spell, and make a magical effect go poof. Merely, that he is reducing the effectiveness, or putting a lot of time into defusing the effect completely, while his allies are either A) Keeping the oncoming enemy away so he can work, or B) Weaken a foe/widen a gate or force it closed/drain the power from a ritual/artifact or amplify/recharge the MacGuffin.

Mage the Awakening and Ars Magica both have systems that can do this (and I've used exactly this in a game of Mage).

 

[Alzrius]

It sounds like what you're looking for are rules that let a character try to overcome something over a period of time, rather than judging the success or failure instantly.

In that case, I agree with you, that doesn't come up very often. Even opposed rolls between characters (or a roll for a character to beat an effect) tend to be a single-roll affair, measuring the instantaneous success or failure of such an attempt.

The problem is that, for games that are based on die rolls (that is, chance) measuring determination is relatively difficult. It never comes down to the PC's ability to muster up a greater effort, so much as it does to luck. Some things, such as action points, can help with this, but they don't truly solve it. Hence why we don't see that in most RPGs.

That said, I'm sure that there's a way to do this; it just hasn't been properly thought-of/implemented yet.

 

[Glyfair]

1) The Contest of Power and Wills. This happens more in superhero shows, but you can find it enough when two wizards battle.

Heroquest (the Glorantha version) does this quite well. The system is designed with one mechanic that can simulate any conflict between two (or more) characters.

 

[WayneLigon]

Ars Magica and the HERO system do both of those quite well.

Ars Magica actually has a specific subsystem where two wizards struggle against each other: Certamen. Very much like the Deryni duel arcane thing.

You'd need to specifically tailor a dueling system for HERO, but it has the concept of powers that can partially negate other powers, whittling away at it piece by piece.

 

[FireLance]

I thought the Keep on the Shadowfell skill challenge was an attempt to use the skill challenge mechanic to run a "countering existing magic" scenario. While I thought the skill challenge itself was too tough, the basic idea was there.

 

[evilref]

It sounds like what you're looking for are rules that let a character try to overcome something over a period of time, rather than judging the success or failure instantly.

In that case, I agree with you, that doesn't come up very often. Even opposed rolls between characters (or a roll for a character to beat an effect) tend to be a single-roll affair, measuring the instantaneous success or failure of such an attempt.

Actually a lot of games have extended skill tests, it's far from uncommon.

 

[Alzrius]

Actually a lot of games have extended skill tests, it's far from uncommon.

Yeah, but those still seem to rely on the dice mechanic that puts more emphasis on luck than what the OP is talking about.

I recognize that's rather inevitable in most cases, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of mechanic that even really tries to rectify this. If I had to try and make one, I'd have it be something like a pool of bonuses a character could expend in a given day, so they'd have the option of adding them to an opposed roll over time, trying to constantly one-up the other guy's result, with the other guy doing the same thing.

 

[evilref]

Yeah, but those still seem to rely on the dice mechanic that puts more emphasis on luck than what the OP is talking about.

Heroquest, Riddle of Steel..and a good half-dozen you could get from IPR with some digging around. You're dismissing them without, evidently, knowing what the games are.

 

[Alzrius]

Heroquest, Riddle of Steel..and a good half-dozen you could get from IPR with some digging around. You're dismissing them without, evidently, knowing what the games are.

I'm agreeing with the OP in that I've never seen a mechanic like that in an RPG system. If there are some out there, then great. However, I'm of the opinion that dice-based systems would handle such a situation fairly badly.

It sounds to me like what the OP wants is a struggle where the results are based (almost) entirely around what the PC can bring to bear. That suggests to me that having a die roll be the final arbitrator of the numbers is a bad idea, as it's based around luck. I think that instead, it should come down to having "points" or a similar mechanical pool that can be spent by the character; overshadowing (if not entirely eliminating) a die roll to add random modifiers. That makes it more about properly rationing power, and allowing for larger expenditures when dramatic results are needed, particularly if those dramatic expenditures are spread out over a short period of time.

Again, if there's already a system that does that, wonderful, but I'm not familiar with it, and I'm not going to go check every RPG out there before I respond.