Actually, your question was "
[h=2]How do I make combat fun with minimal complexity? "[/h] If you encourage your players to roleplay - talk about the cool stuff they're doing in combat - it won't increase complexity unless someone starts second-guessing the GM adjudications.
This is the House Rules, Homebrews, & Conversion Library; but sorry if the position of the thread didn't make it clear that I'm interested in game design rather than GMing style.
This adds some chaotic flow to combat. For a more orderly, but still simple, way to do this, allow each player to choose his number on the d4. Cover your d4 with your hand until your opponent reveals his choice - and find out which combatant chose the better maneuver.
Great; which maneuver beats which?
That said, have you never seen a boxing match? It's pretty much "black shorts attacks, white shorts attacks, black shorts attacks, white shorts..."
The first YouTube boxing video I find is
Manny Pacquiao Greatest Hits.
Starting from 0:38, Pacquiao vs. Ledwaba, I count:
Pacquiao (head - incomplete footage)
Pacquiao (body)
Pacquiao (feint to head)
Pacquiao (body) ~ Ledwaba (head) exchange
Pacquiao (head)
--Cut--
The next fight starts at 0:55, Pacquiao vs. Barrera:
Pacquiao (head)
Pacquiao (head)
--Cut--
Roleplaying games don't
need to be realistic or immersive, and the pacing of a fight isn't the only thing to be interested in. But to me, boxing would cease to be interesting entirely if it consisted of two gentlemanly pugilists taking turns punching at each other.
it's possible to make combat interesting with simple rules, but it would be easier just to introduce complex rules that make combat interesting.
So that's what I'm asking; how do you think combat can be made more interesting with simple rules?
Nexus D20 is different in that it uses a wound system. This changes the dynamics because you can die in one hit if you are stupid. It reflects actual combat much better and prevents people from standing up and shooting each other. Taking a wound gives you a penalty to all actions so you have a harder time doing anything after getting hit.
Are death spirals fun, then? (Actually I think they really can be, but I'll note that most people seem not to like them.)
Each attack after the first one lowers your defense by 1. So you can overwhelm someone. This cascading is limited to 10 or 10 + your cover bonus. This makes cover extremely important and it causes players to act more logically. The only concession is that I don't make the wound penalties go to defense so it becomes a death spiral.
Now that's interesting. So if I'm understanding you properly, what you've done, then, is to encourage characters to deploy themselves so that they can't be surrounded, and whenever possible, to try to concentrate their attacks on single opponents until they die, right?
Dethklok said:
Why do shield walls stop people moving?
Because you have to stay in formation.
Ah.
