Synthicide RPG – vehicle combat rules – feedback?

[Dustin DePenning]

Synthicide RPG – vehicle combat rules – feedback?

Hi All!
I've been developing Synthicide for a long time. It's a gritty sci-fi rpg with tactical combat. Quick info here:
www.synthiciderpg.com

I'm working on vehicle combat rules – trying to keep them narrative and fast. I seem to design new vehicle rules every year

The current rules seem a bit complex, unfortunately, but I think they could work. What do you all think of this overview?

VEHICLE BATTLES
Vehicle battles do not take place on a grid. These battles are too fast-paced to be contained in a single location – so why draw it out? What matters is which vehicles can have access to each other, and this is tracked by using Promximity.
Passengers of other vehicles in range can make attacks against you. If their vehicle is close enough, their passengers can attempt to board you or make melee attacks against you. Here's how to set a vehicle battle up:

1.The GM decides Starting Proximity. Proximity determines what sort of weapons and actions vehicles can use against each other. If in doubt, just assume all combatants start at Rifle Proximity.
2.Determine Driver Velocity (DV). Add each driver’s Operation to their Vehicle Velocity to determine their (DV)
3.All drivers Roll 1d10 + DV to determine turn order.
4.Flee Phase: Following turn order, each driver decides whether or not to flee. These actions are automatically successful.
5.Pursue phase: Following turn order, drivers who did not take flee actions can pursue enemies. This requires successful rolls.
6.Passenger Phase: Following vehicle turn order, each passenger may take one action.
Repeat. Continue the three phases in order until the battle is resolved.


[h=2]Flee Phase Actions[/h][TABLE="width: 455"][TR][TD]Driver Action[/TD][TD]Required Rolls[/TD][TD]Description[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Withdraw[/TD][TD]None[/TD][TD]Automatically successful. Withdraw from all enemy proximities.[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Escape[/TD][TD]None[/TD][TD]Only take this action if no enemies
have proximity to you. Fully escape the battle.[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Play Chicken[/TD][TD]Operation[/TD][TD]Dangerous maneuver to force withdraw from pursuing enemies. Can be used to escape spaceship grapples.[/TD][/TR][/TABLE][h=2]Pursue Phase Actions[/h][TABLE="width: 455"][TR][TD]Driver Action[/TD][TD]Required Rolls[/TD][TD]Description[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Follow[/TD][TD]DV vs. DV[/TD][TD]Regain the same Proximity you had with one fleeing enemy at the beginning of the turn. You may also ram or grapple in the same turn that you take the follow action.[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Close In[/TD][TD]DV vs. DV[/TD][TD]You move to any desired proximity with any enemy. Proximity choices are Rifle, Pistol, Shotgun, Striking.[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Grapple[/TD][TD]DV vs. DV[/TD][TD]Spaceships with grapplers can attach to enemy ships in Striking Proximity.[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Ram Vehicle[/TD][TD]DV vs. DV[/TD][TD]Slam your vehicle into another that is in Striking Proximity. Both take damage.[/TD][/TR][/TABLE][h=2]Passenger Phase Actions[/h][TABLE="width: 455"][TR][TD]Passenger Action[/TD][TD]Required Rolls[/TD][TD]Description[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Attack Enemies[/TD][TD]Standard Attack action[/TD][TD]Attack an enemy within your proximity[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Attack Vehicles[/TD][TD]Roll Damage[/TD][TD]Damage an enemy vehicle within your proximity[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Jump to Enemy vehicle[/TD][TD]Toughness[/TD][TD]You can only jump to vehicles in Striking Proximity. Make a Toughness roll to jump, then Speed roll to hold on.[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Board Enemy Vehicle[/TD][TD]None[/TD][TD]Automatically board a vehicle grappled by yours.[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Take Control[/TD][TD]Toughness vs Toughness[/TD][TD]Wrestle control of the vehicle away from its pilot.[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]

 

[nomotog]

If you have something like initiative, then just have them roll initiative at the start. You can have different vehicles give initiative bonuses to help work that out. Why have you separated the phases? Any time you do things in phases, it really complicates things and I don't see much of a reason to split the phases. You can combine the escape and follow moves, the withdraw and close in moves and have passenger moves mixed in as well.

 

[GMMichael]

Yeah, I'm confused by the phases. Because it looks like some players can act in some phases, others can't, and some players can act in multiple phases. Determining turns is already a sort of phase determination.

You can use a grid for your battles, because there's no reason that the grid must remain stationary. If you want to picture it, lift your grid off the ground, and then watch the ground slowly accelerate underneath the grid. You now have a moving grid.

 

[Dustin DePenning]

Thanks for the feedback.

I went with phases to make sure there is a clean order of events. I liked the idea that each round of battle started with people running away declaring that they have fled, with everyone else taking specific actions to catch up. This also made sure that only people actively pursuing someone had range on them to attack them. It keeps the sequence of actions clean.

However, there may be a way to accomplish this without phases. I agree that phases always make things more complex and harder to remember. I'll see if I can work it out.

Also, I agree that you can still grid this out. However, this raises a lot of mechanical questions I'd prefer to sidestep. What scale is the map drawn at depending on vehicle size? Do you have to re-draw all the surroundings as people travel? What speed do these vehicles actually move, and how do they interact with the random terrain as it comes?

Perhaps there is still a way to draw it out that keeps it abstract – that way there are less rules about the environment and only things that matter narratively are mentioned.

Anyway, thanks again for the feedback. It's some stuff to think about. I'll edit the first post later tonight after I think it through.

 

[nomotog]

Yeah, I'm confused by the phases. Because it looks like some players can act in some phases, others can't, and some players can act in multiple phases. Determining turns is already a sort of phase determination.

You can use a grid for your battles, because there's no reason that the grid must remain stationary. If you want to picture it, lift your grid off the ground, and then watch the ground slowly accelerate underneath the grid. You now have a moving grid.

Convoy the RPG. http://store.steampowered.com/app/318230 I was literally just thinking of that at work. The idea is a solid one, but it would seem like a lot of work to run it at a table top. You would have to take time at the end of each turn to move all the terrain elements a square to the left. (Assuming you don't get into really complex bits like faster and slower scrolling.) Another thing is. Well aren't you moving too fast for that to matter? Lets say there is a fork in the road, how long will it take you to pass it? In most cases, I imagine a round or less.

 

[Dustin DePenning]

Convoy the RPG. http://store.steampowered.com/app/318230 I was literally just thinking of that at work. The idea is a solid one, but it would seem like a lot of work to run it at a table top. You would have to take time at the end of each turn to move all the terrain elements a square to the left. (Assuming you don't get into really complex bits like faster and slower scrolling.) Another thing is. Well aren't you moving too fast for that to matter? Lets say there is a fork in the road, how long will it take you to pass it? In most cases, I imagine a round or less.

I'd prefer to not have to maintain a map at all. I agree it seems like a lot of work. It requires having a lot of terrain or constantly redrawing the map if using dry-erase. It can also limit player narrative options (because the difficulty of variable speeds, as mentioned), and the GM would might have to prepare specific events for the chase scene which could lead to a scripted chase.

It just seems like drawing out vehicle battles increases prep time, mechanical weight, and decreases play flexibility because of the per-turn management required. If different people want to go different directions, then suddenly you have to maintain TWO maps. etc.

 

[Dustin DePenning]

I took another stab at simplifying it. As you guys suggested, it seems that if people act on their own turns, while playing slightly different than phases, it has a similar result. I also tried combining a few actions as suggested. Does it look better?

VEHICLE BATTLES
Vehicle battles do not take place on a grid. These battles are too fast-paced to be contained in a single location – so why draw it out? What matters is which vehicles can have access to each other, and this is tracked by using Promximity.
Passengers of other vehicles in range can make attacks against you. If their vehicle is close enough, their passengers can attempt to board you or make melee attacks against you. Here's how to set a vehicle battle up:

1.The GM decides Starting Proximity. Proximity determines what sort of weapons and actions vehicles can use against each other. If in doubt, just assume all combatants start at Rifle Proximity.
2.Determine Driver Velocity (DV). Add each driver’s Operation to their Vehicle Velocity to determine their (DV)
3.All drivers Roll 1d10 + DV to determine turn order.
4.Each Vehicles acts in turn order. The driver and passengers of a vehicle each take one action. They may act in any order they desire.
5.Repeat. Continue acting in turn order until the battle is resolved.


[h=2]Driver Actions[/h][TABLE="width: 455"][TR][TD]Driver Action
[/TD][TD]Required Rolls
[/TD][TD]Description
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Withdraw
[/TD][TD]None
[/TD][TD]Automatically successful. Exit all vehicle proximities. If you already had no proximities, fully escape the battle.
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Play Chicken
[/TD][TD]Operation
[/TD][TD]Dangerous maneuver to lose pursuing enemies. Can be used to escape spaceship grapples.
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Close In
[/TD][TD]DV vs. DV
[/TD][TD]Move into any proximity with one enemy, exiting all others. Proximity choices are Rifle, Pistol, Shotgun, Striking. If you had Striking proximity to an enemy last turn and regain it, you may also ram or grapple this turn.
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Grapple
[/TD][TD]DV vs. DV
[/TD][TD]Spaceships with grapplers can attach to enemy ships in Striking Proximity.
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Ram
[/TD][TD]DV vs. DV
[/TD][TD]Slam your vehicle into another that is in Striking Proximity. Both take damage.
[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]
[h=2]Passenger Actions[/h][TABLE="width: 455"][TR][TD]Passenger Action
[/TD][TD]Required Rolls
[/TD][TD]Description
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Attack Enemies
[/TD][TD]Standard Attack action
[/TD][TD]Attack an enemy within your proximity
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Attack Vehicles
[/TD][TD]Roll Damage
[/TD][TD]Damage an enemy vehicle within your proximity
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Jump to Enemy vehicle
[/TD][TD]Toughness
[/TD][TD]You can only jump to vehicles in Striking Proximity. Make a Toughness roll to jump, then Speed roll to hold on.
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Board Enemy Vehicle
[/TD][TD]None
[/TD][TD]Automatically board a vehicle grappled by yours.
[/TD][/TR][TR][TD]Take Control
[/TD][TD]Toughness vs Toughness
[/TD][TD]Wrestle control of the vehicle away from its pilot.
[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]

 

[nomotog]

Looks easier to understand now. It seems odd that running away needs no check, but I guess that is because the check is on the chase check.