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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dbm" data-source="post: 9437623" data-attributes="member: 8014">To me, an RPG would count as tactical if it provided meaningful choices during a scene.In combat terms, the most basic tactics would be position and target selection, then going up to things like balancing attack and defence, broadly available manoeuvres (grappling or feints are a good example), with character or class specific manoeuvres often being highly tactical if the other pieces are in play (complex manoeuvres like a ‘whirlwind attack’ and spells are good examples here). These things should have a quantified effect on combat to count as tactical, otherwise it’s more a variation in narration than tactics in my mind.For other pillars of the game, tactics can apply, though it’s often a bit tricker. My personal favourite system (Savage Worlds) has sub-systems which put a mechanical framework on common types of non-combat action encounters (chases and mass battles for example) which then creates space for tactical decisions.It also has a general Dramatic Task system (similar to what was in D&D 4e but more developed) which can be used to put structure onto most any kind of scene (e.g. traversing a flooded river with an all-terrain vehicle in one campaign I ran, or rescuing the crew of a downed space pod).I prefer tactical systems most of the time because I like tactical and strategic games in general (board games etc.) so it’s fun to apply similar sensibilities to my RPGs. But I don’t want tactical combat to be the only area of nuance in a system, far from it. In fact, perhaps a dichotomy is the more tactical combat becomes in a system, the less combats you can fit into a given session. That has ramifications on how the game is balanced / structured.For example, D&D’s attritional system is very well suited for dungeon expeditions where resources get whittled down through a series of encounters and a key strategic choice is: can we press on or do we turn back? The class system has been designed with that concept as a key design goal in my opinion. This means it struggles with campaigns where you have only a small number of fights and they are spaced out in terms of time. If your spell casters can nova in every combat that is a very different experience than if they have to carefully manage their resources over the course of a dozen encounters between rests. This model also influences the amount of tactical complexity the base combat system includes IMO.Systems which don’t assume attrition (Savage Worlds and my second favourite system GURPS both fit here, plus systems like Mithras or Rune Quest) are much better at supporting a smaller number of encounters which means they can all be more tactically challenging. But conversely, they often find the classic dungeon delve a tricky thing to model without careful consideration as the PCs don’t always have enough ‘gas in the tank’ to go through an extended series of encounters without re-charging somehow.Another interesting example of a tactical RPG is Burning Wheel. With its subsystems like ‘Fight’, ‘Range and Cover’ and ‘Duel of Wits’ it is highly tactical without using things like maps for combat, and the verbal conflict is just as detailed as physical conflicts. It also has zoomed-out sub-systems for quickly moving through more trivial encounters without just hand-waving them. It’s a very interesting system.</blockquote>

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