Realistic Combat that's Simple(ish)

[Umbran]

It's clear you don't understand what fiction-first means

Sigh. It's clear you don't understand what fiction-first means

Mod Note:
It is clear that both of you have forgotten (or chosen to forget) that making a discussion personal is apt to make problems. And now you have a problem.

So, going forward, are you going to remember, or shall we just have both of you ushered out of this discussion? Your choice.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Morrow Project 4e is a one-roll system, and is very tractical.

 

[Celebrim]

Calling BS on this one and I think most people familiar with both D&D and PC would agree. But, I get your overall point. Gygax wrote that attempting to simulate reality with a ttrpg would be difficult if not impossible BUT the EMULATION of Fantasy/Fiction is indeed possible. GURPS does this best IME.

As someone that used to run GURPS I entirely disagree.

I mean, in say 1999 I would have agreed with you. Although, I was at that time using the GULLIVER house rules out of frustration with the lack of realism of GURPS. I also hadn't at the time realized that the GURPS skill system was the most badly designed system in all of gaming. I was at the time bamboozled by all of exactly what I'm talking about here, with all the complexity of its process simulation where if you read it you go, "Of course. That makes sense." Because some skills are harder than others, and if you train on one skill then that ought to make you better at related ones, and so on and so forth. I too was equating realism with "Has a subsystem to cover the mental steps that occur to you."

But a realistic system wouldn't be like that. It would need to make accurate predictions in the way that F=ma and V=IR and so forth make accurate predictions. And the trouble is that most "realistic" systems cover up that all the numbers are arbitrarily chosen behind all the "We thought of that" steps. All those steps bury the math, increase the complexity of analysis, soothe your suspension of disbelief, but don't necessarily make any more accurate predictions.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, you said "most games" so I assumed you meant games that, like D&D, have HP pools that rise and fall.

If we're not factoring in the popularity of games, and literally just counting games, then you may be right: "most" games may have dodge/avoidance mechanics. I have no idea. I'm only familiar with a tiny subset of all games.

In a thread about realistic combat, I kind of took it as a given that the hyperstylization of games in the D&D sphere were already off the table, especially since the discussion was about how to handle things without that model. And frankly, once you get outside that sphere, a number of games I'm thinking of are popular, just not to the same degree the 1000 lb. gorilla is.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There's a satisfying middle ground somewhere.

I'm honestly not sure where I'm going with this or how it relates to the thread. Just offering a little more conversation.

There are certainly games that make one-shot kills unlikely, but not impossible, and give players some tools to avoid that while making it still a threat. Default Savage Worlds lands there for example.

 

[payn]

One roll resolution? that's a hard barrier. more than 95% of the games I've read use damage rolls.
Two come immediately to mind: Rolemaster, but it really isn't. MegaTraveller. After a bit of mental juggling...
Year Zero comes to mind

MegaTraveller, see below. Why Rolemaster isn't a 1-roll? Because most hits do crits. Which are a separate table roll.

Year Zero System, provided no defense is taken, is one roll; successes over target in Alien, Coriolis, and a T2K determine damage before armor, and armor reduces that. Note that Vaesen combat is different, and Tales from the loop is a simple opposed roll.

Which brings me to thinking Cortex Plus: one opposed roll to hit, and one unkept die becomes the damage; in Firefly, you have to spend a Plot Point to avoid going out of action on 1st hit, and then get the damage condition based upon the unkept die with the most sides.
In MHRP, the damage step is automatic.

And then, to FATE. Success level determines damage points, at certain points, you convert stress to damage.

Varies by edition. And since all are available in PDF except for Liftoff...
Classic was/is deflection.
Mega was damage multiplier by penetration vs armor rating...
TNE is damage reduction in two modes (one for character scale, one for vehicles; same as T2K 2.x/DC)
GT is both deflection and DR, as it's mechanically GURPS.
HT is (as is typical for Hero) damage reduction (PD/ED) (but not the Hero System DR - which is a multiplier)
T4 is damage reduction.
I can't make sense of T5 to tell.
Mongoose is damage reduction.

Of those, MegaTraveller's the only "one roll" resolution... during combat.
The quality of the shot multiplies the base damage by ×1/2, ×1, ×2, ×4, or ×8.
The comparison of Penetration to AV provides a second multiplier: ×0, ×1/10, ×1/2, ×1
After combat, for characters who matter, the damage points resolve into dice of damage to attributes.

Mongoose uses 2 rolls: a to-hit, and a damage roll, with armor reducing the damage roll. damage is done to attributes, and is immediately applied, one die at a time.

Most of the older games (CT 1e/2e, MegaTraveller, and T4) are two roll: one to hit, one to damage.
Traveller: The New Era, however, some result checks, too.

Not what folks were referring to at all. They meant attacker rolls offense, and defender rolls defense.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But a realistic system wouldn't be like that. It would need to make accurate predictions in the way that F=ma and V=IR and so forth make accurate predictions. And the trouble is that most "realistic" systems cover up that all the numbers are arbitrarily chosen behind all the "We thought of that" steps. All those steps bury the math, increase the complexity of analysis, soothe your suspension of disbelief, but don't necessarily make any more accurate predictions.

It honestly doesn't help that in some cases what "realistic" would look like is either unclear, or people have some ideas about it that at least appear to be counterfactual (but are understandable, since the data isn't commonly available, so they're going off person experience and anecdote).

 

[mmadsen]

And the trouble is that most "realistic" systems cover up that all the numbers are arbitrarily chosen behind all the "We thought of that" steps. All those steps bury the math, increase the complexity of analysis, soothe your suspension of disbelief, but don't necessarily make any more accurate predictions.

Well said. In a game run by humans, rules crowd out human judgment.

Even simple rules can do this. There are plenty of times when rolling versus AC and then rolling damage doesn’t match expectations.

 

[Argyle King]

As someone that used to run GURPS I entirely disagree.

I mean, in say 1999 I would have agreed with you. Although, I was at that time using the GULLIVER house rules out of frustration with the lack of realism of GURPS. I also hadn't at the time realized that the GURPS skill system was the most badly designed system in all of gaming. I was at the time bamboozled by all of exactly what I'm talking about here, with all the complexity of its process simulation where if you read it you go, "Of course. That makes sense." Because some skills are harder than others, and if you train on one skill then that ought to make you better at related ones, and so on and so forth. I too was equating realism with "Has a subsystem to cover the mental steps that occur to you."

But a realistic system wouldn't be like that. It would need to make accurate predictions in the way that F=ma and V=IR and so forth make accurate predictions. And the trouble is that most "realistic" systems cover up that all the numbers are arbitrarily chosen behind all the "We thought of that" steps. All those steps bury the math, increase the complexity of analysis, soothe your suspension of disbelief, but don't necessarily make any more accurate predictions.

I don't feel that I agree with your assessment. I won't say that I "disagree" because your experience is what it is, and we all have our preferences.

Even as someone who ranks GURPS as one of my favorite systems, I admit that there are some tweaks and houserules that I use. (I also don't think that the Basic Set is structured how it should be to present a game that's ready to go, but that's a different discussion.)

As far as "realism," I'm not always sure if real is what people want when they say "real" in rpgs. I think it's more of "...this seems mostly intuitive for how I imagine a situation ought to go."

I think that, even without doing any math at all, it's more intuitive to think that falling from an airship and hitting the ground most likely causes injury (at least outside of Supers, Mythic Fantasy, and similar things).

Also, sometimes "real" means what makes sense given genre fiction -even if it isn't what would make sense in real life. For example, firing a GURPS assault rifle on full auto increases accuracy. That is at odds with my experience of having actually fired those weapons like that, but it matches what many people would expect from an action movie or war story.

I certainly won't argue that it's a perfect game, but it is one that does a lot of things better (for what I want) than other games.

FWIW, I think you ran some games on rpol that I was in. I highly enjoyed them, so thank you.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I think 'realism' is a misnomer, but 'limited to basic physics' is too clumsy to use.

Most of the systems tagged for realism allow a player to perform more individualized actions. One of the major reasons I abandoned D&D so long ago was that the combat is (to me) tedious. Roll to attack, roll for damage, next person on initiative order does the same, etc.

While attacking and doing damage is the heart of a fight, there is a mind-numbing sameness to D&D and too many others, IMO.

In my current system, people are running around, the fight itself is moving through an area, the scenery is taking abuse, and there is a strong sense of individuality to each fight, based on location, lighting, which PC kicked off the action and other factors.