I've read a few of your BW play reports that featured combat. In one I recall more clearly, your character was accosted by orcs for failing a check to determine what happened at a sacked farmhouse, and the combat lacked a good deal of tactical depth as well. At no point did it appear you had options to limit danger occurring or make tactical choices about fictional position to mitigate danger that did appear. These are part and parcel of the DM-facing style, where players are incentivized to be risk-aware because that has positive benefits for dealing with risk. In player facing games, risk occurs no matter what on check failures or scene framing, and there's limited logistical (when to rest, stocking up on potions/scrolls, spell expenditure rates, etc) or tactical (posting guards while a player engages in a time consuming task, having weapons drawn, scouting locations, etc) choices to make. This is because, as a design feature, scene framing is already at a crisis point (go to the action) that requires immediate addressing of events AND failures are meant to increase stakes, so any precautions taken will have limited impacts. Story Now games offset this by using player resources to possibly mitigate consequences (like Blades' use of the resist mechanic), but this is reactionary and not proactive action declaration -- its a choice after the fact, not behavior the player can engage with prior to failure.
It's amusing that you cut out the bits of my post where I specifically point out those mechanics that are after the fact resource expenditures to reduce consequences and then present these exact things as if it refutes my argument. I'm specifically taking about action declaration to reduce or mitigate risk which is why I called out the post-hoc mechanics.
Here's what happened:
1. I posted about post-hoc resolution mechanics as not addressing the agency of players to declare actions to mitigate risk prior to events.
2. You cliped my post to remove this argument, and presented post-hoc resolution mechanics as risk mitigation. You ALSO began a discussion of the Fight! mechanics in BW to respond to my separate points on tactical decision points.
3. I pointed out that you clipped the relevant portion of my first post in regards to post-hoc mitigation mechanics and how it was amusing that you would present post-hoc mitigation mechanics as a solution while intentionally ignoring my explicit comments about them.
3a. I ALSO responded to your separate comments on the Fight! mechanics.
4. You now claim confusion because my complaint about your clipping out portions of my post doesn't address your post about the Fight! mechanics, which is unrelated and temporally impossible.
Okay, that really looks good on you. Go with that.
I've compiled your posts on this topic.
You said, of combat in BW, that "At no point did it appear you had options to limit danger occurring or make tactical choices about fictional position to mitigate danger that did appear." I pointed out that this claim is wrong (or, at best, that the only reason you drew that inference is because you were not familiar with the system). I provided some examples of how, during the course of that fight, I had the option to manage danger (both to my PC and to Aramina) by making choices about positioning. And I also explained how the scripting system more generally permits tactical choices to manage and mitigate danger.
You linked this (alleged) feature of BW combat to some more general thesis that
scene framing is already at a crisis point (go to the action) that requires immediate addressing of events AND failures are meant to increase stakes, so any precautions taken will have limited impacts. Story Now games offset this by using player resources to possibly mitigate consequences (like Blades' use of the resist mechanic), but this is reactionary and not proactive action declaration -- its a choice after the fact, not behavior the player can engage with prior to failure.
I have no idea where this thesis comes from. It is not borne out by BW play - the mage PC in my game, for instance, at one point took the precaution of donning leather armour and that has mitigated danger in subsequent combat. At another point he took the precaution of turning invisible and that mitigated the danger of being detected in an attempt to escape from prison.
It is not borne out by Cortex+ Heroic play either. In my MHRP game, for instance, Bobby Drake's player took the precaution of paying a plot point to have counselling, thus establishing a d6 Pscyhologist's Counselling asset. Later on, he was able to include this asset in a pool to avoid suffering emotional stress.
These are all things done
prior to failure.
You also asserted, but quite mistakenly, that the play examples I provided of tactical choices and choices made to manage or mitigate risk (eg the seer in our Vikings game managing the Doom Pool downwards; PCs in Burning Wheel starting with weapons drawn to avoid the action cost of having to draw a weapon; a PC choosing to reach out to a lesser personage so as to reduce the severity of any blowback; a PC in the Viking game scouting out the giants' steading - in mechanical terms, establishing assets - so as to set himself up for success in a subsequent social conflict) were all "after the fact resource expenditures to reduce consequences". None of them was.
BW doesn't have such mechanics, except the expenditure of a Persona point to survive a mortal wound. Cortex+ Heroic may allow particular PCs to have them, but across my two games the only PC with such an option is Wolverine (who can spend a plot point to recover physical stress). As I posted, these are relatively common in 4e (as interrupts of various sorts) but none of the examples I gave was of this sort of 4e mechanic.
This is why I have no idea what you're talking about. Your thesis is bizarre to me, and seems to be based on generalising some feature of Blades in the Dark across whole swathes of games that you seem to have not much familiarity with.
1. Fight! is unpredicatable and has a reasonable likelihood to result in wounding or death.
It's unpredictable if you're poor at scripting. Scripting well is a skill. (Not a skill I have in large quantities. I have a couple of players who are much better - unsurprisingly, they also beat me in war games.)
As I already posted, the likelihood of death is low, and of wounding more severe than a Light is not that high. A typical physically-oriented PC will have a Light wound of 5 and a Midi of 7. A typical Incidental result will be 3 or 4, and a Mark 6 (Power 4 with a spear) or 7 (Power 4 with a sword, Power 5 with a spear).
My PC wears Plate and Mail armour for 6D armour on the chest, and 5D everywhere else. Few weapons have VA better than 1 (eg spears, and superior swords). The likelihood of 2 successes on 5 dice is over 80%. If a Power 5 orc with a spear attacks my PC, to deliver a midi requires 3 successes - assuming a skill of 4 (on the high side for an orc), that is about a 30% chance; and then there is an 80% chance of being blocked by armour (or better if the blow is to the chest, which will be the default - because shifting to a limb costs additional successes). That is a chance around 5% of a midi or worse, and the chance of the worse is very much lower, because 5 successes are hard to get rolling 4 dice.
Fighting in lighter armour is riskier. Fighting stronger people with better weapons is riskier. But those are all matters that can inform the choice to fight.
2. BW recovery mechanics for wounds are very long and punishing
Recovery takes a long time. My PC currently has a midi wound - not from combat, but from falling masonry. It is at -1D. It hasn't stopped me adventuring.
3. therefore, entering into Fight! where even skilled combatants against weak foes still have a non-ignorable chance of losing weeks of in-game time to recovering means, generally, getting into combat is a bad idea. This system disincentivizes combat much more than the normal for RPGs.
Which RPGs are you talking about? I've played a lot of RM, a bit of RQ and related systems, a fair bit of Traveller, and quite a bit of low level D&D.
It is clearly less risky than first level classic D&D, where orcish spears do 1d6 to PCs whose hit points are frequently in the 1 to 6 range. It is less risky than Stormbringer, I would say (because in Stormbringer your armour dice are more likely to fail you, being linear in probability rather than curved). I think it is less risky to unarmoured characters than RQ.
Comparing to Traveller is harder, because most Traveller combat involves weapon fire, and BW Range and Cover is more dangerous than Fight! because IMS is determined by a die of fate rather than via number of successes.
I would generally assume that if you're getting into combat that your opponents have dangerous weapons. This is a given, and I'm confused as to why you'd point it out.
As I have reiterated in this post, different weapons pose different risks: the add to Power affects IMS, and for an armoured character the VA is crucial. The most dangerous weapon against my PC is a mace, because of its high VA.
Sorry, but are you actually saying that because you've built a character that wants to fight that this changes how the mechanics work and are built and makes combat a good choice? Or that because you've chosen it, the choice can't be a bad one? Really.
Recently, [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] linked to
this blog:
Commenter: I remember a good example in a talk by Will Wright. It's that scene in Indiana Jones in which a large boulder almost rolls over him. . . .
Will Wright commented that in a linear narrative such as this, the viewer is aware of the probability space. We are acutely aware, even at a subconscious level, of what would happen if the boulder rolls over him. This creates dramatic tension. Of course in film, things are happening too fast for the audience to rationalise, and disbelieve what they're watching.
In roleplaying, we don't have that luxury. We are also presented with an even more difficult challenge. Let's say the player fails that check. . . .
I think that a huge boulder rolling over you kills you - that's the only credible result.
So, from a design standpoint, what do you do?
. . .
I guess what I'm asking is, can you have your cake and eat it too.
John Harper: Yes, of course! Not only can you have it, you can have it easily.
The basic method is to ask questions and elaborate until there's clarity to invoke the system. It's a conversation, right? You ask questions, you assess the fiction, you make it clear to the players what the characters know (and don't know) and they make choices.
. . .
In other words, you 1) set expectations, 2) invoke the system, then 3) follow through on the results.
Every functional RPG system works that way.
When you get "random deaths" that seem abrupt, it's usually because #1 has been glossed over too vaguely, forgotten, or assumed and left unspoken. A lively, productive conversation (the essence of RPG play) keeps this from happening.
"You have literally NO IDEA what will happen if you snatch that idol and run. Are you sure you want to do that?"
"Yes!"
"You're taking a crazy risk!"
"I know! I'm a crazy risk taker![1] Let's do it."
"Okay, here we go!"
In some systems (3:16, say), that character is now a die-roll away from death. But everyone knows it, and we all lean forward and hold our breath and watch the dice tumble. On a miss, yeah, maybe the giant boulder squashes them flat, the end.
In other systems (SotC, say), the character has a huge safety net under them all the time so we know this roll is really about how much or how little trouble the character is about to get into. On a miss, yeah, they might take harm (there's no way to die from one hit) and now there's a boulder chasing them -- they have a new problem to escape from, and some problematic aspects introduced into the scene.
Either way, there's nothing abrupt or random going on. The fictional situation has been brought to life during the conversation, the player has made an informed choice (or understands they're making a choice without all the information) everyone understands the genre we're playing in, and everyone is clear on the system before it's brought to bear.
Make sense?
[1]This reminds me of another rant I need to write about: How so many gamers create characters that are crazy risk-takers at heart (dungeon raiders, say) and then play them like timid, risk-averse, weenies. Ugh.
That seems apposite here.
My PC is a Knight of the Iron Tower. He wears plate and mail and carries a shield and mace. He has a whole bunch of relationships, Beliefs and Instincts that are all about his loyalty to the order and to his family, his defence of the innocent, and the pursuit of glory in the name of the Lord of Battle. For this guy, entering combat
is a good idea. Getting wounded may be part of that. Perhaps I'll have to spend time in a hospital of my order; or back at my family estate.
The point of the combat system isn't to disincentivise melee. Nor to incentivise it. It's (i) to make it visceral (whether blind scripting does that for you is probably an aesthetic thing), and (ii) to create a sense that it
matters. There's probably not going to be a fight every session. (Just as not every Traveller session has a fight.)
But if my PC ends up dying because I decided, with no persona points remaining, that some slight to me (or my god, or Aramina) wasn't to be tolerated, well so be it. That's the point of the game!
