Contrasting combat system outcomes

[thefutilist]

I was talking to @pemerton about some tests I was doing comparing systems. I’m not great at combat/thriller set pieces that require a lot of granular orchestration. So I’m running the same situation in different systems with the aim of figuring out what I want and what I should be on the lookout for.

My aim is to start at very low granularity and then begin working my way up. The situation I’m using is as follow.

The cult of the hidden god is a criminal order that works within the Esperi and Nihasi Empires. Some say they’re righteous rebels, Robin Hood figures, some say ruthless slavers and exploiters, some say decadent miscreants. The truth is a mix.

The Esperi empire is driven by conquest, the Nihasi empire is ruled by corrupt nobles. The religion of the hidden god is outlawed in both of them. Initiates of the hidden god study forbidden texts, engage in immoral celebration, the fencing of stolen goods, assassinations, and at times they aid those who revolt and rebel.

One of the things that stops them from being uprooted and destroyed is their access to the forgotten soldiers. Powerful wraiths of long dead assassins. When a noble or judge looks to be fomenting action against the order. An assassin is unleashed and they end up dead. The aristocracy of both Empires soon learnt to look the other way.

To summon these wraith assassins though, requires the Obsidian Lotus. An artefact of great power. One that had been recently stolen by the necromancer Ansillia. If the order does not retrieve it, it is only a matter of time before the aristocracy learns the order is not as dangerous as it once was.

A party of warriors and mages was sent after Ansillia but now only two survive. Finally in the ruined and snow covered town of Balkspear, they have tracked Ansillia down and plot their attack.

CAST

Drenem: An initiate of the order of the Hidden God. In his youth a revolutionary. Now a cynic who wants only to carve out a space in the world for him and his.

Halden: An outcast and mercenary. Halden was an ex-lover of Assilia before she left him. Drenem recruited him to find her, with the offer of a large reward. Large enough to let Halden finally retire in luxury. Beyond all that, the two men have adventured together for half a year now and have become close

Ansillia: A necromancer of Ahasi. Wants to gift the Obsidian Lotus to the Esperi empire. Become an aristocrat and see the Nihasi Kingdoms brought to ruin.

Oh add three Ahasi warriors, skeleton summons under Ansillias' control.

Various outcomes

Going in I know that I wanted a variety of different outcomes to be on the table. That’s what I designed the scenario for. I had a list of a few of the more obvious ones.

Ansilla dies or Halden and Drenem die or any combination.

The Obsidian Lotus ends up with one or the other side.

I was thinking of the type of choices Halden would have to make depending on how the combat was going and what the status of the participants was. Also how the system chosen made some of these more likely, how it took some off the table entirely, how it narrowed down the space in general.

 

[thefutilist]

The first system I used was a 50/50 conflict resolution system. When two characters conflict, roll the dice and see which one wins.

As a default the PC is Halden but depending on the system it could be all three of the primary characters.

Before the encounter even started I noted a few things. One is that I don’t think I had the circumstances fleshed out enough. Why is Ansillia in the ruined church? Had she been hunted to exhaustion, was she just resting and the party was launching a surprise attack? Was it a surprise? I decided that Ansillia was waiting for the party. She knows she’s being pursued, she doesn’t yet know Halden is a pursuer. So her idea is to confront them to get them to stop.

I framed the scene in the church with the party entering, Ansillia sitting where the burn up pulpit used to be and her Ahasi warriors in front of her.

How hard I frame in is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. My default is to start outside the church and let the players describe a general approach. One downside to this is that it becomes a tactics game about the approach and stealth and all of that. I’m not necessarily adverse to such things but it makes me appreciate tech like the engagement roll in Blades in the Dark and the Read a sitch roll in Apocalypse World. As it stands I didn’t bother with any kind of approach roll and so just cut to the inside


The first round of play proceeded as follows:

Ansillia now knows that Halden is after her and is a bit disappointed that he’d help track her down, presumably for money. She threatens the party and says she doesn’t want to kill them but…

Note: With the system we decided that players can’t be affected by social conflict rolls but PC’s can. Whether this exchange would require a roll is interesting. I noted in Sorcerer if this was a threat that was taken at all seriously Ansillia getting a good roll could maybe shut everything down then and there. With a total victory the player could still take a subsequent action as they choose but they’d be at one dice.

Anyway the party didn’t respond to the threat and so it came down to combat. I could have potentially split this into several rolls but doing so with a simple system is something I’m going to return to at another point. This roll was going to resolve into either:

The Ahasi warriors are now slain by Drenem and Halden or Drenem and Haldem are disarmed, wounded and captured.

They ended up captured.

Ansillia then took a knife out and was going to slay Drenem. Telling him that he had been warned. Halden plead with her to spare him. We rolled and he failed and so she slit Drenems throat. Had Halden chained up and took him prisoner whilst she figured out what to do with him.

At this point we ran through some other scenarios in a more abstract way. Here are a few of them.

Halden persuades Ansillia to spare Drenem. She would have tied them up, taken their weapons and continued on her way. Or maybe she would have taken Halden prisoner anyway and left Drenem there. Which I think would have been cooler, this was really down to my inspiration as the GM.

If they’d beaten the undead then Ansillia would have made a break for it. That probably would have gone as follows.

Halden wins he captures her.

Halden loses and she’s getting away but he still has the choice to stop her by putting a crossbow bolt into her. Then another roll would decide whether that’s a success or not.

Note: It’s interesting how wounds and damage could either heighten a lot of this stuff or drain it of drama entirely.

So much of this system depends on in the moment orchestration but we’d got a few different outcomes.

Fail the fight Drenem dead, Fail the fight Drenem alive, Win with Ansillia captured, win with Ansillia fleeing because of a miss, win with Ansillia fleeing because Halden didn’t shoot, Win with Ansillia dead.

6 outcomes. Only one hard choice, which is whether Halden shoots or not following a success and then a failure. All six outcomes were very different but I’m fairly happy with how I run basic conflict resolution. Although I do want to scrutinise it later.

 

[thefutilist]

OTHER KIND DICE – BASIC CARDS

This was done using the good working outcome set found here:

https://lumpley.games/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Good-Working-Outcome-Cards.pdf

Taken from the following blog post.

Otherkind Dice – lumpley games

lumpley.games

We used: goal, secondary goal, you hurt, friend hurt.

I said the goal was to get the Obsidian Lotus with the secondary goal of capturing Ansillia. My friend countered with a secondary goal of letting Ansillia go. Which is pretty awesome and the system already doing some work. Although in hindsight we could have brought in the ‘what it costs’ table for that.

Technically this gives 48 outcomes although many of those are just how wounded someone is, which may or may not be that impactful. The roll happens after Ansillia’s threat.

It turns out the party was bruised and wounded but got the Obsidian Lotus from Ansillia before she fled. Creating the stakes like this makes it easy to split getting Ansillia and the Lotus, which is pretty cool and I’m not sure how easy that would be in other systems.

I could go on at length about other kind dice but it’s obvious that it really forces you to carve out the outcome space. This has some interesting consequences though.

In one set of results we had Ansillia being captured but the party didn’t get the Lotus. One of the Ahasi warriors made away with it. Given the warriors are under Ansillias control, a dispute now happens between Drenem and Halden about whether to kill Ansillia, which would deanimate the skeleton. This is the type of dispute that could get fatal pretty quickly but it was harder to do using the system. You can just use the goal and cost tables for a whole lot of resolution I guess.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In terms of analysis in 4e I think level isn't critically necessary to nail down. The framing of scenes (encounters or maybe technically a short sequence of encounters) is structurally identical across all levels. The fiction will reflect different scales of concerns within the milieu is all. Honestly, if you consider radically different levels, low heroic tier vs high epic, say, the higher level PCs will naturally be able to justify more degrees of freedom in terms of actions in a way that might make you want to frame things differently, but 4e is pretty unique in D&D terms in really being fundamentally the same game at all levels in a way no other edition is.

Imagine a level 10 rendition of this scenario. The 2 PCs have spent several levels on this quest to recover the Lotus Blossom. They are worn but have withstood harsh tests and become the most accomplished Ranger and Fighter operating today within the 2 kingdoms. But their foe, Ansillia, is a mighty and deadly opponent, greatest of living Necromancers. Mechanically she is a level 12 Elite opponent. I won't delve into stat block details or anything like that, but she commands 3 level 12 undead standard skirmishers. This makes a combat encounter with her, for 2 level 10 PCs extremely difficult, but we can mitigate that somewhat via the SC mechanics.

Should the PCs decide to attempt a diplomatic solution, then they can try to approach Ansillia. In this case her tactical position will be favorable to her, and she will have all her servitors. The PCs would presumably be attempting to either intimidate her into surrender, or negotiate an outcome in which they get the Lotus. I would also consider this a Complexity 2, level 10 encounter. In essence it is mechanically similar to the first option, except total success results in Ansillia surrendering the goods, while failure puts the party in even more of a hard situation (IE the PCs are tricked and get surprised). So it represents a bit more risky path with higher stakes and a bigger payout.

This second SC obviously will have primary skills of Diplomacy, Intimidate, and perhaps Streetwise (to describe the bad effects of the Lotus being removed). History, Arcana, and Religion could be secondaries.

Finally, should the combat commence, the players could decide to do something like simply attempt to steal the Lotus and abscond, since they don't really have to defeat Ansillia to achieve their quest. In this case such an attempt would be a Complexity 1 level 12 SC. The first 2 checks can be made using Minor actions to do things like figure out where the Lotus is. If a character can spot it, using Perception, or Insight, the player gets to describe its location (on Ansillia, concealed about the location, carried by a servitor, etc.). The second success allows deception, using Bluff, or surprise using Stealth. Success here allows the player to either reposition a servitor, or their PC in such a way as to facilitate the last 2-4 checks (obviously within reasonable fictional parameters). Note that since this SC is happening within combat, the map state and terrain will apply constraints on what is possible at any given moment. The last 2 checks will be Athletics, Acrobatics, and/or Thievery attempts to obtain the item.Note that once the item is obtained, escape is presumed. Ansillia, if able, will probably follow and further action may be based on whatever attempts to rectify the situation are made, vs anything the PCs do to foil pursuit. This probably justifies another SC, although there's no compelling reason why escape cannot be assumed. I would base the approach from here on out on pacing and other factors (IE do the PCs have sufficient XP to reach Paragon? Perhaps just cut it off here, and have them return to base, get their reward, and advance).

 

[pemerton]

OTHER KIND DICE – BASIC CARDS

This was done using the good working outcome set found here:

https://lumpley.games/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Good-Working-Outcome-Cards.pdf

Taken from the following blog post.

Otherkind Dice – lumpley games

lumpley.games

I could go on at length about other kind dice but it’s obvious that it really forces you to carve out the outcome space. This has some interesting consequences though

I don't think I've seen Otherkind Dice before - thanks for the links!

I haven't played using it, but reading it reminds me of Agon 2e: roll first, then narrate. Like we're finding out what happened, rather than what happens.

 

[pemerton]

A party of warriors and mages was sent after Ansillia but now only two survive. Finally in the ruined and snow covered town of Balkspear, they have tracked Ansillia down and plot their attack.

CAST

Drenem: An initiate of the order of the Hidden God. In his youth a revolutionary. Now a cynic who wants only to carve out a space in the world for him and his.

Halden: An outcast and mercenary. Halden was an ex-lover of Assilia before she left him. Drenem recruited him to find her, with the offer of a large reward. Large enough to let Halden finally retire in luxury. Beyond all that, the two men have adventured together for half a year now and have become close

Ansillia: A necromancer of Ahasi. Wants to gift the Obsidian Lotus to the Esperi empire. Become an aristocrat and see the Nihasi Kingdoms brought to ruin.

Three Ahasi warriors, skeleton summons under Ansillias' control.

A situation a little bit like this happened in my Torchbearer 2e game last Sunday: 3 PCs confronting a NPC necromancer, with 8 skeletal honour guards under his control.

The PCs opened the door to the NPC's room; I decided that he tried to escape through his back door to his second room, but the PCs stopped him - this was a Flee/Pursue conflict. At that point it could have turned into combat, but instead the PCs talked. The session ended with the talking still going - next time I think I will press to frame it either into a Negotiation or Convince conflict, if the PCs don't just agree to the NPC's offer.

In your scenario - and this comes out also in @AbdulAlhazred's 4e D&D version - the split between defeating the NPC and getting the Lotus is interesting. Torchbearer 2e can allow for this, but it would have to come out in the compromise; and the compromise depends on the fiction established during resolution.

Consider, say, a Capture conflict: one of the PCs might perform a Feint or a Manoeuvre, narrated as going for the Lotus; and then in the final wash-up Ansillia isn't captured, but the Lotus is taken from her.

Or consider a Flee/Pursue conflict: a PC lunges for Ansillia, but grabs the Lotus instead; or Ansillia could even drop the Lotus to distract a pursuing PC (this is the interaction between equipping "weapons" and performing actions), so she escapes but gives up the Lotus.

As these brief sketches might suggest, the framework for the compromise outcomes in Torchbearer is a bit less constrained than it is with Other Kind Dice.