Raven Crowking
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Mike Mearls, I am calling you out! (Legends & Lore 6/28)
- Thread starter I'm A Banana
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ExploderWizard
Hero
fuzzlewump
Explorer
[MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION]
Downtime I think is left out because it's not the game, it's the in between. If it ever becomes part of the game, it's roleplaying or exploration usually. I guess it boils down to different definitions/core principles.
Seems like the only divergence with the Mearls Article as far as defining 'Combat' as such is your addition of chase sequences. Have chases been traditionally covered by the D&D rules? In 3e/4e it seems like the most rule support you get for that is that different creatures have different speeds, highest wins. In 4e I would/do run it as a skill challenge, but there's not really a great stat or skill for it, nothing specifically covers running (not even athletics.) Basically, using combat rules, specifically your speed, and run after each other. The faster party catches up and uses opportunity attacks to eventually take down the other, or if they are really fast, can even charge them. Try to use immobilizing and slowing attacks from range. Basically... combat with a slightly different goal than usual.
Downtime I think is left out because it's not the game, it's the in between. If it ever becomes part of the game, it's roleplaying or exploration usually. I guess it boils down to different definitions/core principles.
Seems like the only divergence with the Mearls Article as far as defining 'Combat' as such is your addition of chase sequences. Have chases been traditionally covered by the D&D rules? In 3e/4e it seems like the most rule support you get for that is that different creatures have different speeds, highest wins. In 4e I would/do run it as a skill challenge, but there's not really a great stat or skill for it, nothing specifically covers running (not even athletics.) Basically, using combat rules, specifically your speed, and run after each other. The faster party catches up and uses opportunity attacks to eventually take down the other, or if they are really fast, can even charge them. Try to use immobilizing and slowing attacks from range. Basically... combat with a slightly different goal than usual.
Patryn of Elvenshae
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Mike Mearls ruined Kamikaze Midget.
ExploderWizard
Hero
Yes. The 1E DMG had quite a bit about evasion and pursuit.
There are other ways of dialing complexity than resolution methods. Does exploration involve graph paper and descriptions like "you proceed 50' down the corridor, then it turns to the left and goes another 20' before ending in a T-intersection"? Or is it "you make your way through the necromancer's labyrinth toward his lair. Everybody roll Dungeoneering, those who fail lose a healing surge to traps before they arrive"? Or somewhere in between?
That may speak more to the quality of the Skill Challenge system than to the general idea of dialing complexity up and down for things that fall into the "roleplaying" bucket. If the system is incomplete, flawed, or poorly matched to the task, which Skill Challenges may well be, of course it's going to make things stilted/unnatural/clumsy/un-fun. But there's no reason to assume that a social combat system would have to produce the same results, if it were better designed than Skill Challenges are for structuring social conflicts.
And again, we're talking about options here. No reason to torpedo an idea many people find intriguing, if it's not going to be mandatory for every game and group.
ThirdWizard
First Post
I'm going to take KM's highly entertaining thread and go into excruciating detail on how "social combat" can be a lot of fun, using one of my favorite systems, the Dresden Files RPG, a FATE game.
In FATE, the representation of your social fortitude is modeled in the same way that your physical fortitude is modeled. You have a number of boxes that are marked off when you take stress ("damage"), and when you suffer an attack that goes beyond your boxes, you take consequences, of rising severity based on how much stress you take. At any time, a character may choose not to take consequences (they can last multiple sessions!) and instead be "taken out" in which case they lose the conflict. Sometimes, it is worth it to lose a battle to win a war.
When a social "attack" is made, you use a skill. In a physical conflict, this might be Fists or Guns. In social conflict this could be Deceit or Intimidation. You roll your attack, they roll their defense, and you compare the results, and the difference is which box is checked off (note, you keep the boxes lower than this result). The first one to be taken out is the loser in the conflict. This might be because all the consequences were taken and they have no choice, or it could be because they cut their losses and quit instead of taking a severe consequence.
This can lead to an exciting back and forth, where you have to determine just what you're willing to put on the line to win the social conflict. Sure, maybe you can take that severe consequence and beat your opponent, but that consequence will be there for several sessions, and you won't be able to take a physical severe consequence when you're being pounded by some kind of otherworldly monster later! But, if this social situation could turn things in your favor enough, it can be quite tempting.
You can also use all the abilities in social conflict that you could use in physical conflict. You can use Aspects, a FATE thing that defines a person or place to get bonuses, maneuvers that give bonuses, etc. So, it has the full force of the FATE system's rules behind it, just like physical conflict does.
I'll throw out an example, and I'll couch it in a D&D world. Lidda wants to convince the leader of a local mercenary outfit, a man named Brand, that it is in his best interests to join the city of Mountain Hollow in an upcoming war. Brand hates the leader of Mountain Hollow and would love to see it fall. She and Krusk have walked straight into their camp and called the leader out in front of all of his men. They did this because they know that they didn't get paid for their last few battles, and Brand isn't as popular as he once was. They are hoping to use this against him.
Both Lidda and Brand have four social stress boxes and no consequences taken as of yet.
Lidda's first action is an assessment of the situation. She rolls Empathy to get a read off Brand. She's never met him before, and she wants to size him up. Rolling well, she watches him and quickly notices that while he looks most of his men in the eye, he fails to make eye contact with his lieutenant. She learns that he has the aspect Worried About A Usurper. She notes this for later.
Brand starts things off fiercely, with an Intimidate. And, he's good at it. He lowers his voice, and stares both her and Krusk down intently. "You are either brave or foolish coming here. We owe no allegiance to your kingdom. If we choose to kill you, it is within our own purview." He looks around at his men, raising his voice. "Our camp is our sovereign land. What do we do with intruders?" The battle shouts resonating through the crowd ring in Lidda's ears. She makes a Discipline check to defend, but rolls poorly. She is visibly shaken, checking off her 2nd stress box.
Now it is her turn to respond. "Good captain, we are simply diplomats seeking to purchase your services. Do you normally receive those who would pay you good gold with threats and insults?" She decides that she is using the scene aspect of Haven't Been Paid to influence Brand through his men. She rolls Performance, since the GM decides she's playing to the crowd, although it will still be considered an attack on Brand. He will defend with Presence. With the bonus from the aspect, she beats him enough to inflict 3 stress. He's starting to sweat a little bit now as murmurs go through the crowd about how they need money badly.
Nonplussed, Brand keeps up the bravado. "Your gold is worthless. Mountain Hollow is weak and will be overrun in a matter of days. They can't fight for themselves, so they send you to beg for them. We might as well wait for its destruction and pick through the leftovers afterward. We'd get more gold that way." He smiles a wicked grin at Lidda. He rolls very well on his Intimidate check, and Lidda flubs the defense roll. He inflicts five stress on Lidda. She only has four stress boxes, so now she must use consequences to lessen this, or give up the contest. She uses a mild consequence, reducing the stress to three. She checks off her third stress box and takes the mild consequence Reticent.
Lidda decides to set him up for the kill. Because she knows he has the aspect Worried About A Usurper, she guesses that he isn't in as complete control as he would like to let in. In fact, she guesses that if he loses too much face here, he could lose control of the entire mercenary corpse. She draws in close, so that only he can hear, using Deception. "Perhaps my gold is worthless to you. But, then, perhaps there are others in your band who would find it to their liking. Maybe in a few weeks, I won't be negotiating with you." She turns and walks back to Krusk. This is a maneuver. She is attempting to put the aspect Worried About A Coup on him. She rolls an attack and beats his defense. He now has the aspect.
Lidda sees him starting to sweat, and he glances back at the lieutenant. She turns back toward him, as he switches tactics, going for a more diplomatic approach. If he puts forward a well reasoned argument she can't counter, what can she do? "Just as a merchant won't give credit to a customer he doesn't think can pay him back, a mercenary group must weigh potential losses against their employer's credit. We will not be a creditor to a city we do not trust. Perhaps you should come back when you have a credible chance of winning." He rolls Raport and tags the aspect that Lidda got the previous attack Reticent, getting another +2 to this roll, and she rolls to defend. He beats her handily, inflicting 6 stress on her! At this point, she could walk away, defeated, or she could take a moderate consequence and 2 social stress. They need the troops, so she takes the consequence aspect Disheartened. She's losing confidence in herself at this point.
She knows this will be her last shot at convincing him, walking right up next to him. She isn't an imposing figure physically, but her words carry. "You need this. You need us more than we need you. There are other mercenary bands out there, don't kid yourself on that. And, when we win, and they get paid, and you're sitting here in your camp eating mushrooms and drinking muddy water, remember this conversation. And when your men decide that they need a leader who is willing to take risks for them, remember what you could have had." She goes all out. She tags the Worried About A Usurper aspect she learned about her first action as well as the Worried About A Coup aspect she placed on him last round. She also invokes her own aspect Biting Tongue for a total of +6 to this roll. Her attack against his defense inflicts 10 points of stress on him!
He could take several consequences, but at this point, he would rather agree to hire his men out to Lidda. Grudgingly, he agrees to negotiate for mercenary work, and Lidda leaves the camp shaken, but with troops to help Mountain Hollow in the upcoming battle.
delericho
Legend
Oh, I agree. I only included it as an afterthought/for completeness.
They're not really supported in 2nd, 3e or Pathfinder. 4e has the mechanism of the Skill Challenge (and the Athletics skill) which in some ways is the missing element. But more could be done.
Of the list of "action scenes" I gave, I actually only feel the "combat, skirmish" option is particularly well supported. Everything else is poorly supported if at all.
Not keen on either example, but the second one is particularly off-putting. A D&D that goes in that direction is not a D&D I want to play.
Agree on the first point. On the second, I disagree - the existing evidence is that D&D's mechanisms for such things are poor; that tends to suggest that a revised system is also likely to be poor (especially if it is more complex). That doesn't mean it will be, of course, but I don't have a good feeling about it...
That certainly wasn't my intent. Just giving an opinion.
Sure, it can be fun. But roleplaying encounters are even more open-ended and fluid than combat encounters. I'm afraid I have a really hard time seeing a system developed that will be better than what we have now.
Yet again, I at least am not talking about D&D going in a direction as a whole, but about options for how to play the different spheres being discussed (specifically with respect to dialing complexity or detail up and down). Are you saying that if a suggestion for an abbreviated exploration sequence like that were an option in a DMG, you wouldn't want to play the game at all?
I chose the example because I've done that in a session or two. The big cool event was the set-piece battle; I had nothing prepped for the journey there. I didn't want to waste time and energy improvising the particulars of what traps were in the tunnels. But it made sense to have a bit of resource drain for navigating the journey poorly. No different from a Nature check for overland travel when nobody cares about playing through their berry-harvesting efforts.
