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Vampire's new "three-round combat" rule
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<blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 7592990" data-attributes="member: 20564"><p>[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] - well presented. Part of calling out something as a personal soap box of mine is I would be lax if I didn't acknowledge it was opinion. You've put together a well thought out different opinion. I see where you are coming from even if for myself my view differs some.</p><p></p><p>Here's my general viewpoint in a nutshell: <strong>I think that the amount of time spent on a scene should be in-line with how interesting it is to the players, which is usually (but not always) proportional to how important it is.</strong></p><p></p><p>That is regardless if a scene has combat or not. (And leads back to what we were already discussing, the debated point of combat-focused character creation both a symptom and then a cause of combat taking a lot of RL time.)</p><p></p><p>If my mid level player wants to sell off a magic item in a big city, it's a moderate-big deal. We can spend 10 minutes on how/what/when, with dice rolls and others involved from the bard doing marketting and the rogue planting rumors, the cleric talking to the temple to get lists fo heavy donators who might have the coin, and the like. If the same character wants to sell a bunch of looted silverware it might be one roll to see how well they do vs. the appraised value.</p><p></p><p>Combat should be able to be the same thing. </p><p></p><p>Recent example from near the end of my last campaign - the high level party was fleeing their crashed airship with a large chunk of a concentrated orken army searching from them from multiple sides. Say 10K orcs, including some dragon-riders.</p><p></p><p>1. The whole escape was done a bit like a 4e skill challenge, but tossing botht he limiter "skill" and the horrible mechanics, replacing it with several tracks - how close/on their trail the pursuing orcs were, how close/on-their trail the orcs in front of them were, how close to the dwarven bolthole they decided to try for they were. It was everything you talk about combat being - tense, dynamic, developing, cooperative, without being combat. The fact that they took the wounded crew with them and the bulky supplies the under-siege dwarves needed caused problem in what they were trying to do, but were important if they succeeded.</p><p></p><p>2. On the other hand, they were found at one point by a group of orc scouts. The combat <em>wasn't important</em>. They were high level PCs, these were just standard orc scouts. I didn't have them roll any dice, I just went around the table and had each PC add to the montage of how they won. And because players did remembered to do things like take out the signaller before they could raise an alarm back to the rest, that didn't worsen either track. (Of course, an hour later when the scouts were all signalling back in they had to decide to attempt to replicate what they though was the "missing" signal since they had heard them every few hours several times, or just be quiet and let the orcs know that squad had been killed.)</p><p></p><p>So we have both what you say is mostly found in combat, but I can see in any tense, developing situation (but done better when the mechanics support it). Combat is not unique, it's just treated that way because it's the common point in the character creation/advancement processes that all characters have,a dn the only type of scene described that is given that level of mechanical support.</p><p></p><p>While in fact, so many situations can require that same sort of thrill if the DM designs them right and works with an appropriate timescale for the scene. Navigating downriver and hitting rapids. A three week overland journey chock full of hazards and meaningful decision points (which may or may not be fully informed descision points based on the PCs abilities and actions). Just as you (rightfully) pointed out that combats can be grinds if they aren't full of interesting hazards, terrain, win conditions, foes, etc - the same for every other scene. Combat are one among many, but propelled to a first place only because of the mechanical focus on handling that type of challenge vs. a much lighter mechanical focus in handling other types of challenges.</p><p></p><p>I've also put up a counterexample where a combat <em>as combat</em> wasn't important so shouldn't (and didn't) have significant time spent on it, but the results of the players actions still had effects.</p><p></p><p>And all this is staying within the D&D-type game (the campaign above was 13th Age, my favorite fantasy heartbreaker, a d20 by JonathanTweet and Rob Heinsoo). But there are games like Leverage, a Cortex game based off the TV show, and there you might have one Hitter - you only need one character who specializes in each category for a heist. So your question of "how many soldiers do we need" is just one.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Blue, post: 7592990, member: 20564"] [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] - well presented. Part of calling out something as a personal soap box of mine is I would be lax if I didn't acknowledge it was opinion. You've put together a well thought out different opinion. I see where you are coming from even if for myself my view differs some. Here's my general viewpoint in a nutshell: [B]I think that the amount of time spent on a scene should be in-line with how interesting it is to the players, which is usually (but not always) proportional to how important it is.[/B] That is regardless if a scene has combat or not. (And leads back to what we were already discussing, the debated point of combat-focused character creation both a symptom and then a cause of combat taking a lot of RL time.) If my mid level player wants to sell off a magic item in a big city, it's a moderate-big deal. We can spend 10 minutes on how/what/when, with dice rolls and others involved from the bard doing marketting and the rogue planting rumors, the cleric talking to the temple to get lists fo heavy donators who might have the coin, and the like. If the same character wants to sell a bunch of looted silverware it might be one roll to see how well they do vs. the appraised value. Combat should be able to be the same thing. Recent example from near the end of my last campaign - the high level party was fleeing their crashed airship with a large chunk of a concentrated orken army searching from them from multiple sides. Say 10K orcs, including some dragon-riders. 1. The whole escape was done a bit like a 4e skill challenge, but tossing botht he limiter "skill" and the horrible mechanics, replacing it with several tracks - how close/on their trail the pursuing orcs were, how close/on-their trail the orcs in front of them were, how close to the dwarven bolthole they decided to try for they were. It was everything you talk about combat being - tense, dynamic, developing, cooperative, without being combat. The fact that they took the wounded crew with them and the bulky supplies the under-siege dwarves needed caused problem in what they were trying to do, but were important if they succeeded. 2. On the other hand, they were found at one point by a group of orc scouts. The combat [I]wasn't important[/I]. They were high level PCs, these were just standard orc scouts. I didn't have them roll any dice, I just went around the table and had each PC add to the montage of how they won. And because players did remembered to do things like take out the signaller before they could raise an alarm back to the rest, that didn't worsen either track. (Of course, an hour later when the scouts were all signalling back in they had to decide to attempt to replicate what they though was the "missing" signal since they had heard them every few hours several times, or just be quiet and let the orcs know that squad had been killed.) So we have both what you say is mostly found in combat, but I can see in any tense, developing situation (but done better when the mechanics support it). Combat is not unique, it's just treated that way because it's the common point in the character creation/advancement processes that all characters have,a dn the only type of scene described that is given that level of mechanical support. While in fact, so many situations can require that same sort of thrill if the DM designs them right and works with an appropriate timescale for the scene. Navigating downriver and hitting rapids. A three week overland journey chock full of hazards and meaningful decision points (which may or may not be fully informed descision points based on the PCs abilities and actions). Just as you (rightfully) pointed out that combats can be grinds if they aren't full of interesting hazards, terrain, win conditions, foes, etc - the same for every other scene. Combat are one among many, but propelled to a first place only because of the mechanical focus on handling that type of challenge vs. a much lighter mechanical focus in handling other types of challenges. I've also put up a counterexample where a combat [I]as combat[/I] wasn't important so shouldn't (and didn't) have significant time spent on it, but the results of the players actions still had effects. And all this is staying within the D&D-type game (the campaign above was 13th Age, my favorite fantasy heartbreaker, a d20 by JonathanTweet and Rob Heinsoo). But there are games like Leverage, a Cortex game based off the TV show, and there you might have one Hitter - you only need one character who specializes in each category for a heist. So your question of "how many soldiers do we need" is just one. [/QUOTE]
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