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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6095333" data-attributes="member: 82106">I'm not sure how much different it is. Remember, we're talking about fights trivial enough that people are balking at spending 30 minutes resolving them, so its not like a lot is supposed to happen. [MENTION=85555]Bedrockgames[/MENTION] described his ideal as '5 minutes', and frankly if it isn't as abstract as an SC it isn't going to end in 5 minutes. There's a difference between abstract and meta-game too. EVERYTHING is abstract, all of D&D is an abstraction, you don't describe the physics of swinging a sword and do calculations to determine how many lb-ft of leverage you got on the orc and calculate the yield strength of semi-rotted pig leather with a burlap backing. You roll a d20 and see if you hit. Is it really that radical a solution for these quick fights to say that each character in turn does something (uses a power, tries some stunt, etc) and the DM supplies a DC and if they hit the DC its a success and if they don't its a failure, etc. Honestly the SC format works QUITE WELL for a fight and is not all that divergent from combat mechanics (sure, it abstracts away some things like damage, but obviously more effective attacks can have lower DCs, you can use the 'advantages' from the RC, or even grant multiple successes if a PC is willing to burn a whole slew of resources in one shot). Again, you obviously aren't using this for big fights, but I THINK it would mesh fairly smoothly into the existing combat system without seeming like it produced totally different types of results. Its a bit fuzzy and DM dependent, but I think that's fine for parts of the story you don't want to focus on too much. Chances are the encounter exists for what, attrition, exposition, mood/pacing, or narrative. Attrition works with a "1 or 2 HS lost per fail". Exposition doesn't really care about resolution, but success may be the key to the reveal. Mood and pacing are a lot like exposition, you may want some minor tension, skirmishes with guards can fail and lead to consequences, just having guards says "this is a guarded place", etc. Narrative of course can be moved forwards quickly when you can abstract over certain things or moving along at a "10,000 ft level" which you may want to do now and then.</blockquote>

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